Chosen Path
by Ghost in the Machine
Summary: Jeffery Anderson has come to Nerima searching for something. Of course, with Nerima being what it is, what he finds is something else.
1. Introduction

Ranma 1/2 and his folks belong to Takahashi-sama and whomever she sold the rights to. Mishima Heavy Industries and the characters associated with it belong to Yuzo Takada among other people. (At least I think they do, I could be wrong.) This is just for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended. Other characters appearing in this fic belong to me, Warren Phillips. Some characters who do not appear, but are mentioned, belong to my good friend Chris Roxby and are mentioned with his permission. (Hey Chris, where's the $400 you owe me?)  
  
Insert traditional "This was my first fic, be gentle" request here.  
  
------  
  
Block. Block. Step back. Block. Dodge and grab. Pull, twist and throw.  
  
My 'opponent', a dark-haired girl about four years younger than me, hits the tatami but is up again quickly. So far in this sparring match I've found out a few things. First, she's nowhere near as fast as I am. Second, she has some holes in her defense. Third, for someone who doesn't weigh 50 kilos, she hits pretty hard. I found that out when I blocked one of her punches instead of dodging. For some reason she seemed surprised. Before she recovered, I landed a light punch to her mid-section. She chastised me for this, indicating she wasn't fragile, but I'm still not attacking all out. We're only sparring.  
  
She approaches a little more cautiously this time and I decide to go on the offensive for a bit.  
  
High kick. (Missed.) Three punch combo. (Blocked.) Low kick. (Jumped over, and I dodge her return kick.) Grab her leg before she can retract fully, twist and push. This leaves her face down on the mat.  
  
Again, the quickness of her recovery surprises me a touch. Unfortunately (for her anyway), she charges and attempts a straight punch intended for my nose. I sidestep and trip her.  
  
She turns the fall into a shoulder roll and pivots toward me again. "I deserved that," she says while straightening her yellow gi.  
  
My Japanese is now at the point where I understand her. Which, considering I've been seriously studying it for only six weeks, isn't too bad. "Yes, you did," I answer in my horrible American accent.  
  
We spar for another ten minutes. She does tag me with a couple scoring punches, but takes several punches and kicks from me. She seems happy when I signal to stop.  
  
"Thank you Anderson-sensei," she says, smiling. "When Ranma and I spar, he just dodges and that makes me so mad. It's nice to actually spar."  
  
"Tendo-san, it's 'Anderson-sensei' only when we are at school. Anywhere else, you can call me Jeff. I'm not _that_ much older than you," I reply. This sort of thing seems excessively important to the Japanese. But then I'm only a stray gaijin, what do I know?  
  
"Only if you call me Akane, ne?"  
  
"I'll do that." Then something she said a moment ago clicks. "Who's Ranma?" I ask.  
  
Her smile disappears without a trace. She goes into a short, heartfelt speech, most of which I miss due to the speed with which the words come. Selected words I pick out include "baka", "hentai", "hakuchi" and "iinazuke". I recognize the first two as meaning fool and pervert, I think hakuchi is idiot and I whip out my pocket dictionary to find the last means fiance. She rumbles to a stop once she notices I have the dictionary out.  
  
"Gomen sens- Jeff. It's just that sometimes he makes me so mad."  
  
"So why is someone you don't like your fiance?" I ask while returning the dictionary to my back pocket.  
  
"It's a long story, but the short version is 'It's all our fathers' fault'," she replies. "Can we talk about something else?"  
  
"Sure. How about our sparring session?"  
  
Struggling with my admittedly poor vocabulary, I give her the good news first. She's (surprisingly) strong, she recovers quickly and her endurance is good. Then the bad news. She's excessively aggressive and doesn't react well to being grappled. She is also slow by my standards. I don't tell her the last one because most people are slow by my standards.  
  
She also has a few comments about my fighting style or lack thereof. I don't fight from a set stance and I've never formally studied martial arts in my life. I do practice, as fighting is a large part of my soon to be former profession. But when Bill was born, it was time to change my chosen path to one a little less likely to wind up with my son becoming half an orphan. Trouble will manage to find me anyway, so I still stay in shape. If I'd wanted a dull life I'd never have been a super hero in the first place, let alone a 'retiring' super hero.  
  
Akane implies I'm not aggressive enough. I tell her that it was only a sparring match. She also calls my technique "poor, yet effective". I give her that one as she's right. I've always considered myself an 'adequate' hand to hand combatant when I don't use my telekinesis. I'm fast enough and strong enough that technique doesn't come into play when I fight the average goon. I'll admit I'm a much better fighter using a staff, but in close quarters that isn't an option. I prefer to work on my weaknesses. My strengths take care of themselves.  
  
I bow out of the dojo, say my goodbyes to Akane and find Nabiki. "O.K. Tendo-san," I begin. "You've got yourself a deal. 3000 yen per hour for the dojo time, half that if I'm sharing the facility when I'm here."  
  
"Thank you very much Anderson-sensei."  
  
"Like I told your sister, it's 'Anderson-sensei' only when we are at school. Otherwise, please, call me Jeff."  
  
"All right then, since you're a paying customer, you can call me Nabiki... When we're not at school," she says smirking. She then asks, "Will you be paying as you go, or do you want to set up an account?"  
  
Even having met Tendo Nabiki for the first time three days ago, I already know how seriously she treats anything that involves money. Laughing, I reach for my wallet and tell her, "I figure I'll be here an hour or two a day, probably three times a week. How about I give you 30,000 yen to start and you tell me when I've gone through it. And I'll need a receipt."  
  
We hash out a few details, (such as martial arts lessons not being included in the price) I give her the cash and get the receipt even though I can't read it. (I'm just starting to figure out katakana and hiragana, but I'm still fairly clueless with kanji.) Before I leave, Nabiki introduces me to her older sister Kasumi and to her father Soun.  
  
Tendo Kasumi has a quiet serenity about her that makes her even more beautiful than she would be otherwise. She is taller than her sisters, with long brown hair. (I like long hair on women, just ask my wife.) I'm a happily married man, but if I wasn't, I might have asked her out at some point.  
  
Tendo Soun strikes me as a stolid martial arts type with his long hair and calm countenance. He's dressed in a brown gi and seems happy that I am renting time at his dojo. Although for some reason he also looks relieved that I'm not actually asking for lessons. Something I'll worry about later. Right now I need to call home and that is best accomplished by getting to my room. Unfortunately.  
  
I hop on my bicycle and make quick work of the 25 klicks back to my rented room. This driving on the left stuff bugs me some, but not near as much the cramped quarters. I swear, my father-in-law has closets that are bigger than this place. But still, it has room for a futon, a small private bathroom, a microwave, a TV and a dorm fridge. I can live with it, but I don't like it. I call home and leave a message on voice mail for my wife because with the time difference I don't want to risk waking her up. Lil' Bill had just started to sleep through the night when I left for Japan and I don't want to wake him up either. Monster, my computer set up, is still testing access pathways into the Mishima Heavy Industries network. I look at the one photograph of my wife and son that I brought with me from home and think about why I'm here in the first place. The rest of the evening is spent watching television and working on my vocabulary.  
  
--------  
  
The next morning, I'm up with the sun, do my hundred push ups and go outside for room to do my stretching routine. Afterwards, I grab my backpack, briefcase and gym bag and bike to Furinkan High School. I hit the coach's shower and change before I haul myself to the third floor. "Memo to self... Find someplace to eat breakfast." Some of what the Japanese consider food is enough to make me nauseous. That, and I just don't get miso soup and rice for breakfast. Maybe I can fly down to Okinawa on Sunday, sneak into the PX or something and get stuff I consider real food.  
  
Before I came to Japan, I used my hacking skills to make it look like I was a college student doing my junior year abroad as a student teacher. If anyone checks, the City University of New York shows me as being a junior Education major with a 3.89 GPA. Actually, all I have is a GED because my parents kicked me out of the house when I was 16, two months before I would have graduated high school. Of course, I had already earned enough money programming computers by then that I didn't care. Later on, when I started in the super hero business, money stopped being a problem. When I got short on cash, I'd do some freelance programming work and make enough to keep me in the black. Being able to generate 2000 lines of code a day and have it work the first or second try is a very salable skill.  
  
Anyhow... I drag myself to class about 10 minutes before the bell and start going over the lesson plans Serizawa-sensei has prepared for me. (In English no less, bless the man.) There's a rumble of thunder in the distance, which I ignore because I'm daydreaming about sausage gravy and biscuits. Then there is an explosion. I rush to the window and see two young men. The first is a fairly tall one wielding a bokken and dressed in what I think is called a hakama. I'll have to check my reference materials later. The other is wearing black pants and a red shirt and is standing in front of what used to be one of the support pillars for the school gates.  
  
I'm out the window as the tall guy starts thrusting his bokken at the other one at a rate of speed I haven't seen outside the costumed set. It takes about two seconds for me to reach the ground. (A little TK to slow my fall.) By this time, bokken guy has made at least twenty attacks and hasn't connected with any of them. The kid in the red shirt is just flat dodging them. Not stepping back out of range, not blocking them in any way, just not being where the wooden sword is. I've seen a lot, but I haven't seen anything like it since Fastball died.  
  
I can cover the 20 meters between me and them in about 2 seconds. It turns out I don't need to. The kid in the red shirt says something to a girl I recognize as Tendo Akane, just before dodging a strike to the head and calmly kicking the kendoist in the stomach, solar plexus and temple so fast it almost looks like one motion.  
  
"What's going on here!" I shout in English, before I remember myself and try again in Japanese.  
  
"Oh Anderson-sensei, don't worry, it was just Kuno-sempai," Akane states as if that explains everything.  
  
"Yeah, he started it," the red-shirted youth says also as if that explains everything.  
  
Tendo Nabiki arrives and looks at the scene with a certain disdain. "Oh Kuno-chan, when will you ever learn?" she asks of no one in particular. "Anderson-sensei, allow me to introduce my sister's fiance Saotome Ranma," indicating the still standing young man with a wave of her hand. Pointing down she continues, "This large lump is Kuno Tatewaki. He's in my class."  
  
"Then why haven't I seem him before?" I ask.  
  
"I could tell you for 500 yen," she counters.  
  
I _know_ she's serious, but before I can decide if I want to pay or not, Ranma interrupts my train of thought with, "Aw, I think his sister poisoned him again."  
  
Make that train wreck of thought. While I ponder this tidbit of information, the early bell rings to indicate that we should all be heading to class. Nabiki indicates she'll take Kuno to the nurse's office.  
  
Nabiki comes to class about 5 minutes late, but with a note from the nurse. Kuno-san comes in about 10 minutes later, looking remarkably well for a man that was unconscious less than half a hour ago. He has no note, but Serizawa-sensei doesn't ask for one. Since yesterday he made a girl stand in the hall with a water bucket for being 20 seconds late, it makes me wonder why Kuno gets special consideration.  
  
I find out quite a bit at lunch in the teacher's lounge. Seems Kuno is the principal's son and the captain of the Kendo Club. That explains that. I also find out that Kuno's feud with Saotome Ranma has been going on since the day Ranma arrived. Kuno was the best fighter in school until Ranma's arrival too. There's also something about Tendo Akane, but I don't get the whole picture before lunch break is over. Although several of the teachers speak at least passable English, I'm using Japanese as much as possible because I need the practice. I won't eat lunch here again though. Too many smokers.  
  
Despite what happened this morning, I've seen plenty of weird stuff in my life and don't think I'll see anything too freaky by the time I leave. The only thing that still bugs me after lunch is the unanswered question "What caused that explosion?"  
  
-----  
  
After school, the various school clubs meet. Of interest to me this day is the Kendo Club of which Mr. Kuno is the captain. Entering the practice area, I see that Kuno is sitting on a tall pile of mats while the rest of the club either sits on the floor or is paired off in duels. Across from Kuno there are two posters on the wall, one of Tendo Akane and one of a cute red-haired girl. For the most part, the students practice without padding or helmets, which seems dangerous to me. Practical maybe, but I'm surprised the school is willing to risk the liability. But then again, this is Japan, things work differently here.  
  
Kuno notices my arrival and lightly leaps from his place to land in front of me, his bokken at the ready. "Who dares interrupt the sacred majesty which is the Furinkan High School Kendo Club and more importantly disturbs myself, the rising star of the Kendo world, the Undefeated 'Blue Thunder', Kuno Tatewaki?"  
  
Actually, he goes on like this for a couple of minutes and I'm catching maybe one word in three as I try to do a running translation in my head. Well, my language skills aren't the greatest yet, so I decide to play nice.  
  
"I beg your pardon Kuno-san, I am student-teacher Jeffery Anderson. This is the Kendo Club, is it not?" I inquire in my best humble tones.  
  
"It is."  
  
"I have some interest in bujutsu. May I observe your club and with your permission perhaps duel some of the members?" I could see him ponder my request. I think it was the fact that I had been polite that convinces him. I pegged him as a pompous loud mouth, that type responds well to flattery and exaggerated politeness. Whatever the cause, Kuno agrees to my request and sends his second to arrange the membership in a challenge line.  
  
As the first two students square off, I split my attention between Kuno and the match. Kuno watches the bout with minimal interest, as if his mind is elsewhere. He stays this way through the first four matches until one of them is won by a lower ranked member. Kuno's attention snaps back to the practice area and he issues orders for the two students to change places in the challenge line. It stays while the same student wins again and rises another notch. But after that, it wanders off again as the rest of the matches go to the higher ranked students. When Kuno's second defeats his opponent, the matches stop.  
  
"And what do you think of the prowess of the Furinkan High School Kendo Club, Anderson-sensei?" Kuno asks me after the last match is over.  
  
"Very nice, Kuno-san," I reply. I've fought swordsmen a couple of times before. From what I saw this morning, I think Kuno is probably better than any of them. Kuno is probably better with his sword than I am with my staff, but I think it would be close in a fair fight. However there's more to a fight than just raw skill, add my TK and he's toast.  
  
Kuno's second hands me a bokken and I start challenging the line. The first four matches are over in seconds. I'm fast and I've got a good 10 to 15 centimeter reach advantage over most of my opponents and I use it ruthlessly. I win three more matches before I take my first hit. Two matches later I take my second one. There are only 5 members of the club left, and I work through 3 of them before Kuno's second beats me. I could have taken him with a staff.  
  
"Your style is very... unorthodox," Kuno states in a tone that leaves no doubt that he is not impressed. Or happy with the performance of his club.  
  
Quickly dredging my memory, I tell him, "Italian sword styles are designed to look sloppy, but still be effective." I read that somewhere once. It might even be true. It seems to mollify Kuno somewhat. After some small talk, I leave and as I start to bicycle home I can see in the distance an odd looking aircraft flying over the city. Wishing that I hadn't left my binoculars in New York, I watch it fly toward the headquarters of Mishima Heavy Industries. "I'm not ready to deal with them yet Rich," I tell myself. "Your ghost is just gonna have to wait."  
  
-----  
  
Another night, another hundred words for my vocabulary. The morning is uneventful until I'm just a few klicks from the school. That's when a purple haired girl on a bicycle blows past me the other way doing about 75 klicks an hour. There's a large box strapped to the back of the bike and during the split second I see her face, she has a sappy grin on it. Braking to a stop, I turn to look at her. It's really weird when she 'hops' the bike to the top of a fence and starts riding along that for a bit before dropping off the other side. "Well, _that_ was strange," I tell myself.  
  
I just get back up to speed when another bicycle passes me from behind. This one is going at least 90 kph and is ridden by a girl with long pink hair, wearing a school uniform. She has a passenger, a boy of grade school age who is holding on for dear life.  
  
"Yeeeeeee HAAAAA!!!!" he shouts.  
  
I look ahead and see a rail crossing ahead. The gates are down and the train will be there in seconds. She doesn't slow down, just 'hops' up on a hatchback, skips over to a truck, and then jumps over the train to the top of a pedestrian walkway.  
  
Aw fork it. I follow, using my TK for the jumps, but she's long gone by the time I get across the train. My definition of strange may need work.  
  
I get to school, shower and get ready for classes to start. A hunch tells me not to go upstairs yet, so I head to the school gates. Repairs on the gate support pillar have already been made. I watch as students stream in, some looking at me with interest, some ignoring me, some I recognize from my class who say "Ohayoo sensei" and a few muttering "gaijin" in voices I'm not supposed to hear. Getting close to the bell, Tendo Akane runs in with two girls. One I recognize as the red-haired girl whose picture was with Akane's in the Kendo Club practice hall. The other is a pretty girl with brown hair tied up in a white ribbon, wearing a double bandoleer of spatulas over a boy's school uniform and with a large pizza spatula strapped to her back. The red-haired girl is dressed in the same type of outfit Ranma wore yesterday, only in a looser fit. She's also dripping wet.  
  
"Careful Tendo-san, you don't want to be late for class," I tell her.  
  
"Hai Anderson-sensei," she replies.  
  
At this point Kuno comes striding over, bokken at the ready. When he sees the arrivals, his demeanor changes instantly. "Pig-tailed girl!" he shouts and latches onto the red head in a death grip.  
  
"Back off pervert!" the girl in question yells. Breaking his grip, she punches him toward the brown haired girl while saying, "Ucchan, catch."  
  
The brown haired girl unlimbers her large spatula and swats Kuno back toward the red head. At this point Akane smacks the red head on the noggin with a mallet. (Mallet?? Where did that mallet come from?) Kuno flies over the prostrate red-head and lands in a heap on the grass.  
  
"Ranma, we don't have time for this. You know what sensei said he'd do if we were late," Akane says with an irritated voice. (Ranma? Must be somebody else with the same name.) She then turns to the other girl, "Give me a hand will you Ukyo?" The two girls then drag the third toward the school, leaving me with Kuno. By the time they reach the doors, the red head is walking under her own power.  
  
I check Kuno over and take him to the nurse's office. Personally, I think he deserved it. If I were a woman and some guy tried that, he'd be lucky to walk away from it. I make sure to get a note from the nurse before I head to the third floor and Serizawa-sensei. You never know.  
  
-----  
  
It's a nice day, so I decide to eat lunch outside. Under some trees, the Ranma I met yesterday is sitting and reading some manga. The brown haired girl from this morning has a miniature grill set up nearby and is furiously cooking something. No sign of Akane or the redhead. Curious, I wander over. Getting closer, I discover whatever it is smells great. I decide to introduce myself.  
  
"Hello, I'm Jeff Anderson, I'm a student teacher here for the next few weeks. You're Ukyo, right?" I think I said that right.  
  
Not pausing in her cooking, she looks up at me and answers, "Yes, I'm Kuonji Ukyo sensei. What can I do for you?" I'm have trouble understanding her, her accent is bit 'off' from what I've been hearing. While I'm trying to compose my answer, she scoops up what is on the grill, slaps it on a paper plate and shouts "Hey Ran-chan, catch!" while winging it to him.  
  
I watch Ranma scarf whatever it is with obvious delight. "Delicious as always Ucchan!" he chokes out around a mouthful of food.  
  
"What is that stuff?" I ask of Ukyo, my stomach audibly growling.  
  
"Okonomiyaki," she says with a bright smile. She continues, "When it comes to okonomiyaki, I'm the best!"  
  
"Ya sure are!" Ranma interjects.  
  
I whip out my pocket dictionary, but don't find 'okonomiyaki'. I know the 'yaki' part means food. 'Konomi' is listed as 'liking, preference, choice. 'O' at the start of a word can mean 'great' or 'large'. Great choice food? No matter how much I study Japanese, I don't think I'll ever understand it.  
  
Ukyo sees my confused face and says, "Here, I'll make you one," and gets busy at her grill.  
  
Ranma gets up, strolls over to us and asks, "Hey, what about me?"  
  
"You've still got the lunch Kasumi packed you," Ukyo states in a reasonable voice. "Besides, it's always nice to introduce someone to okonomiyaki."  
  
While Ukyo is busy cooking, I ask Ranma, "Kasumi? Tendo Kasumi? You know her?"  
  
"Well, yeah... Me and Pops live with the Tendos."  
  
"I didn't see you when I went to rent time at the dojo."  
  
"That was you? Me and Pops were out trainin' after school. We musta just missed you."  
  
"Must have." I think for a bit and continue. "So, Akane is your fiancee?"  
  
"Yeah" he answers, continuing under his breath "uncute tomboy."  
  
"I'm Ran-chan's 'cute' fiancee," interjects Ukyo.  
  
"You have two fiancees?" I ask, interestedly.  
  
"Three, if you count Shampoo. I don't, but everyone else does."  
  
"Three?" I blurt out loud, while a small part of my mind goes "Shampoo?" Monsters don't bother me. Villains trying to kill me are a regular part of my existence. Talking cats, I almost consider normal. Relationships still confuse the heck out of me. I'm glad I found Anne and married her with so little trouble. I can't imagine what it must be like with three fiancees.  
  
Ukyo adds, "What about Kodachi?"  
  
"I don't even wanna _think_ about her," Ranma states emphatically before shuddering.  
  
Four fiancees? Before we get to five, I change the subject. "Akane seemed happy to spar with me. You don't spar with her?"  
  
"I don't hit girls."  
  
"What if the girl hits first?" I think about some of the people I've fought in three plus years in the super hero business. An attitude like that can get you very dead.  
  
"Well, it's not like Akane can hit me anyway. She's way too slow."  
  
Between what I saw yesterday with Kuno and my sparring match with Akane, Ranma must have some serious speed. Akane is not very fast, but she's not _that_ bad. Before I can comment on that, Ukyo presents me with a plate of okonomiyaki. I still don't know what it is, but it's pretty good. The nearest thing I can think of is a cross between a pancake, an omelette and maybe pizza. "Mmm... MMM... This is great! You should open a restaurant."  
  
"Already did Anderson-sensei", Ukyo informs me, grinning.  
  
Swallow. "Where?!? This is best food I've had since I got to Japan!"  
  
She actually blushes at the comment. Ranma 'hmmpfs' and goes back to his tree and starts eating from a bento box. I pull out my map of the Nerima district and have Ukyo mark the location of her restaurant. No chance I'm missing out on food I can eat. I've been eating way too much instant ramen and far too many tuna fish sandwiches. A lot of what I like to eat is very expensive here. I was going to try some of that "Kobe beef" I've heard about when I first got here, but didn't feel like blowing two hundred bucks.  
  
Ukyo makes her own lunch, then shuts off her grill and cleans it. The three of us then sit down and talk for a bit. They ask me what college is like. I lie. From what I understand, getting into college in Japan is the hard part, but once you're there it's a piece of cake. The warning bell rings and Ukyo leaves to put her grill away. Ranma and I head to the school doors. "So where's Akane and the other Ranma?" I ask.  
  
"Other Ranma?"  
  
"Cute girl, yeah high, red-hair, came in with Akane and Ukyo this morning, dresses like you." Looks a bit like him too, now that I think about it.  
  
"Oh... That's my... cousin Ranko." He doesn't seem too thrilled by my description of his cousin.  
  
"Could have sworn Akane called her 'Ranma' this morning." I know damn well she called the other girl Ranma. I pay attention to details like that. "Maybe your fiancee likes you more than she lets on? Getting your names mixed up like that."  
  
Ranma laughs nervously, "No... That's not it."  
  
I'm not going to push him on this. Besides, I'll probably see him later when I go to Tendo dojo for my workout after school. We're close to the front doors when a voice rings out.  
  
"Ranma! PREPARE TO DIE!!"  
  
END PART 1  
  
In Part 2: If you can't guess who it is, why are you reading this? 


	2. Guess Who?

PART 2  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, a 20 year old telekinetic 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High School. He's met the Tendo family, Ranma's male form, Ukyo and Kuno. He's renting time in the Tendo training hall to keep himself in shape. He's also seen a couple of things he considers weird involving girls on bicycles moving at ridiculous speeds. Jeff is waiting for something. While he's waiting, someone else decides to introduce themselves first...  
  
-----  
  
"Ranma! PREPARE TO DIE!"  
  
I hear this and my body instantly kicks over to combat mode. The voice is from behind and above me. I shove Ranma to the right and use the recoil to move left, turning as I go. I see young man in a yellow shirt, black pants and a yellow and black bandana. Raised high over his head in his right hand is an... umbrella??? He's about 6 meters off the ground at this point and falling fast.  
  
Ranma turns my shove into a shoulder roll and comes up facing the attacker. Meanwhile the newcomer smashes his... umbrella... into the sidewalk between himself and Ranma, kicking up debris. I throw up a repeller field in front of Ranma, deflecting the shrapnel to the ground. Flying and the repeller field are the only two TK tricks I can do by reflex, without having to concentrate or see what I'm affecting. At least they're useful tricks.  
  
With an exasperated sigh, Ranma says, "All right Ryoga, what I do this time?"  
  
Neither of them notice the altered trajectories. 'Ryoga' doesn't notice me moving to his blind side either. This guy obviously has super-human strength and I'm not going to worry about hurting him if he's trying to kill Ranma. I drop the repeller field and reset it around myself for protection.   
  
Ryoga charges Ranma, thrusting and swinging his umbrella wildly. Ranma is calmly dodging the attacks as he did with Kuno's much faster strikes yesterday.   
  
"Stand still damn you, so I can kill you for what you did to Akane!" shouts Ryoga, punctuating every word with a swing of his umbrella. At this end of this accusation, Ranma suffers a surprise break much as Akane did during our sparring match. I just hope it isn't fatal. Ryoga's blow lifts Ranma into the air and slams him into the school wall.  
  
Damn, damn, damn me. No staff, no shuriken, no body armor, no smoke bombs, no first aid kit, not even a roll of duct tape. I swear, after this fight I'll never leave home unarmed. Of course, I said that day my son was born too. I run up behind Ryoga, plant my left foot and put my right heel into the middle of his back to the best of my ability. I crushed three of Nightblade's vertebrae and paralyzed her with a similar move.  
  
Ryoga must be a lot tougher than Nightblade. He takes the blow, stumbles forward a few steps, turns to me and shouts, "Who the hell are you?!?"  
  
"You're not killing anybody!" I shout. Behind him, I see Ranma pry himself out of the wall.  
  
"Stay out of this!" This comes from both Ranma and Ryoga. Although for what I hope are different reasons.  
  
"No way," I inform them as I review techniques for taking out people with super human strength. Don't let them hit you and keep them off balance. In this case add separate the weapon from the weapon user. The last is not a problem as Ryoga flicks open his umbrella and spins it at me like some giant top. I use a repeller field to guide it away from me. The feedback tells me that it must weigh over 65 kilograms. Another item to place in the weird file.  
  
While I've been dealing with the umbrella, Ryoga and Ranma have gone into close combat. Ranma is as fast on offense as he is on defense, but Ryoga doesn't seem to be feeling the blows. They are both shouting at one another, but I can't make out the words as I approach the two of them.  
  
Ryoga performs a block that knocks Ranma back a few feet. He then thrusts a glowing finger at the sidewalk and screams, "BAKUSAI TENKETSU!" This time, I'm surprised at what happens. The sidewalk explodes like it was hit with a small mortar. My repeller field protects me and I can see Ranma's hands swatting away shrapnel while dodging the larger chunks. Still, his clothes get shredded and he takes some small cuts.  
  
Enough is enough. I have to stop this guy, even if it blows my cover. I drop the repeller field so I can put it somewhere it'll do some good. Before I reset it, Ranma closes the gap between them while shouting, "KACCHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!"   
  
I suffer another surprise break as I see Ranma's arms blur into motion. Wiggle a pen between your thumb and index finger. You'll see an image of the pen at the top and bottom of it's arc with a blur in the middle. If you do that in front a television or computer screen, the blur resolves itself into a group of false images. In this case I don't think any of the images I saw were false. Each one was a solid punch to Ryoga's midsection. He finishes with a shot that knocks Ryoga back. I focus my telekinesis and achieve a lock on him. Using over 700 kilos of lift, I join with the force of Ranma's punch and throw him over the school wall. Unfortunately, when he leaves my line of sight, I lose my telekinetic hold on him.  
  
I turn to Ranma, who seems confused.  
  
"I didn't hit him that hard. No way," he says quietly.  
  
"Ranma, are you all right? Ranma!?" I look over him over. None of his wounds are bleeding badly, but he does look a little shocky.   
  
He shakes his head hard, and seems more focused than a moment ago. By this time some of the crowd that had gathered to watch the fight come over to check out the damage. Ukyo dashes up with her giant spatula held at the ready like a weapon. Akane is a few steps behind her.  
  
"Ran-chan, what happened?" Ukyo pleads.  
  
"Later. Take him to the nurse. NOW!" I state in a flat voice. She puts her shoulder under his and they start off to the school doors.  
  
Akane grimaces at Ukyo and Ranma before turning to me and asking, "Sensei, what happened?"  
  
"Some lunatic attacked Ranma!" I don't tell her anymore because by this time I'm half way to the wall I threw Ryoga over. If I'm lucky, he's hurt and hasn't got far. I jump the wall with my repeller field up and ready for trouble.  
  
Landing, I see a divot in the ground where Ryoga must have landed. I find a dent in the ground near where I crossed the wall, but no sign of Ryoga. I run to the nearest intersection and hope for the best. Straight, nothing. Right, nothing. Left, huh? About 20 meters down the road I see a large backpack and a pile of clothing that includes a pair of black pants and a yellow shirt. He stopped to change clothes? In the middle of the street?? I search some more but only find a couple of small kids playing with water pistols in a nearby alley.  
  
I grab the clothes, stuff them into the backpack, lug it back to the school and heave the whole mess to the top of the wall. It's a very heavy pack, almost as if there were weights in it just to make it heavier. I glance around before jumping over the wall myself. I note that the umbrella is not where I left it. Nothing I can do about that now. I head to the nurse's office to check up on Ranma.   
  
Poor guy. I don't have a scratch on me. Ranma looked like hell when I left. I give Ryoga the best shot I can without using my powers, and he barely notices. Ranma shouts something about chestnuts and beats the stuffing out of him. I've felt outclassed before in the hero business, but seldom so badly. Going to have to do something in case this Ryoga guy shows again. Doesn't surprise me that Ranma and Ryoga are meta-humans though. We're popping up all over the place these days.  
  
My body is on auto-pilot while I think about what I should have done during the fight. I second guess myself a lot when I make a showing as poor as this one. I reach the nurse's office before I'm ready to deal with everything, but go in anyway. I drop the backpack inside the office door before looking around. I don't see the nurse, but I do see Nabiki and Ukyo doing a professional job of cleaning and bandaging Ranma's wounds. Including a lump on his head that wasn't there when I saw him last. I'm certified to teach First Aid, and if I wasn't in Japan, I'd be finishing an EMT certification course right now. Wish I was home instead of here, or Canada instead of here, or anywhere instead of here, but I owe Fastball... dammit Rich... this.  
  
Ranma is awake and alert, putting up with the bandaging with good humor. "Hey sensei! Are you O.K?" he inquires.  
  
"That's my line, Ranma," I respond in a voice I barely recognize as my own.  
  
"Aw, don't worry, I'm a martial artist. I get worse than this all the time."  
  
"I saw your face at the end of that fight, you were _not_ all right"  
  
He smile fades a bit. "Well... that's cause of my last punch. I _know_ I didn't hit him hard enough ta knock him over the wall. He musta been jumpin' back or sumthin'."  
  
It's the 'or something', but I don't tell him that. The nurse shows up, compliments Nabiki and Ukyo on their work and gives Ukyo a hall pass so she can get back to class. Nabiki sticks around as she spends time down here as a nurse's aide a few hours a week. The nurse leaves to attend to a girl with a fever, so I bring up what's on my mind.  
  
"Looks like you'll live. So, Ranma, you want tell me what all this was about?" I ask.  
  
"I'd rather not," he says, his glance shifting between myself and Nabiki.  
  
Nabiki pipes in, "I could tell you all about it for 1500 yen."  
  
I give Nabiki my blackest look. She doesn't rattle a bit. Her English is better than my Japanese, so I switch languages. "Tendo-san, one day you may either sell information that isn't yours to sell and get killed for your trouble or try to sell information to someone who'll decide it's easier to kill you than deal with you. Either way, you wind up dead."  
  
"Is that a threat Anderson-sensei?" she inquires icily.  
  
"Merely the observation of someone who has seen more dead people than you."  
  
She doesn't change expression, but does leave. Ranma seems to relax slightly when she does. I change mental gears back to Japanese.  
  
"You know Ranma, I met Nabiki last Saturday when I first got here. She made a great first impression. Tuesday, when I bought time at the dojo, she made a good second impression. But yesterday, she offered to _sell_ me information on why Kuno was absent, and just now she offered to sell me personal information about you. Right in front of you!"  
  
Ranma sighs and looks as thoughtful as I've seen him during our brief acquaintance. "She don't mean nuthin' bad by it... and it don't really hurt me."  
  
I think about emotional harm as compared to physical harm. And about how much longer it takes to recover from emotional harm. My language skills aren't up to the challenge of explaining that. Something I'll have to work on. Besides, I think Ranma would rather receive a hundred beatings than talk about his feelings. I remember how bad I was at his age. So I fall back on habit and change the subject. "Now that the audience is gone, what was the fight about?"  
  
The way Ranma explains it, he considers Ryoga a 'friendly rival'. Ryoga attacks Ranma over a list of grievances, mostly imaginary from what I can tell, and Ranma tolerates it because Ryoga is one of the few people who can give him a good fight. Personally, I think the whole thing is insane.  
  
"Ranma, if _anyone_ screams 'Prepare to die!' around me, I am going to treat it seriously. Ryoga looked ready, willing and able to kill you."  
  
"Aw, it was nuthin'. Ryoga wasn't _really_ try'n ta kill me."  
  
"Didn't look like it. What if it had been someone you didn't know?" I try reasoning.  
  
"It is, usually"  
  
"Huh?"   
  
"I'm heir ta the 'Anything Goes' School of Martial Arts. People are attack'n me or try'n ta marry me all the time. Actually, it's been kinda quiet this week."  
  
This is a quiet week? His life must be more messed up than mine. Even though I'm in Japan for another reason, I'm glad I've met Ranma. As mean as it may sound, it's nice to be on the outside of a problem for a change.   
  
'Click.'  
  
The sound of a camera gets my attention, but it's just Nabiki taking a picture of me and Ranma. As I turn to face her, she takes another picture.  
  
'Click.'  
  
"Please don't do that," I tell Nabiki, "I don't like having my picture taken." She points the camera squarely at me.  
  
'Click.'  
  
"I'm serious. Don't do that."  
  
Adjusting the focus, Nabiki grins and shoots another frame. 'Click'  
  
Before she can so much as flinch, I snatch the camera out of her hands.  
  
"Hey! Give that back. That thing costs money!" Nabiki yells heatedly.  
  
"How much?" I ask, trying to keep my voice level.  
  
"7500 yen plus tax," she answers, surprised at my question.  
  
Focusing my TK, I crush the camera in my hands. I could have done it without it, but the TK makes it easier and much less messy. While Nabiki looks at the results, I toss them in the nearest wastebasket and reach for my wallet. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. "Here's 10,000 yen for the camera, the tax, the film and the time it'll take to replace it. _Never_ take my picture again." I hope she remembers what I told her about selling things that aren't hers.  
  
She grabs the money, gives me a look that just _screams_ 'This isn't over' and leaves in a huff. Maybe I should have just exposed the film, but hopefully this will get the message across a little clearer.  
  
"Ya know, there are times I've _really_ wanted ta do that," states Ranma, who has risen from his cot. "But I can't afford the camera."  
  
"It was worth it."  
  
I tell Ranma that I'll be at the dojo a bit after school as I want to stop at Ukyo's restaurant for some food first. Okonomiyaki. Who knew? I get a note from the nurse and return to my class before Nabiki can return and do something else that pisses me off. Damn. Forgot to ask Ranma about that bump on his head, the camera thing distracted me.  
  
-----   
  
I bike to Ucchan's after classes and wait for Ukyo to arrive. I'm not the only one waiting. A few other students are here with a smattering of 'salary men' and a few others. There are a some uncomfortable looks from the crowd, but I'm used to that sort of thing from the natives by now. Japan is surprisingly insular despite, or perhaps because of, it's modern technology.  
  
After a bit, Ukyo unlocks the door and the crowd streams in. It looks like a one woman operation as she's running the grill and the counter and everything else. Busting a hump too. I wait until the first rush is over, buy two beef and a pork okonomiyaki and enjoy the best food I've had since I got to Japan. I thank Ukyo for the meal and ride over to the Tendo dojo. The sky darkens and it looks like it may rain soon.  
  
Akane lets me in and I see no sign of Nabiki, which is good because I really would rather not put up with her right now. She seems determined to get on my bad side. As we walk toward the dojo, Akane asks if I would like to spar again.  
  
"After my workout, sure." I tell her and she gives me this wonderful smile. "But first, I need half an hour alone in the dojo for my practice."  
  
"Do you need anything?"  
  
"Just the dojo and some quiet."  
  
"Well... you can have the dojo, the quiet might be harder to get."  
  
I laugh as we enter the dojo. Ranma is there, performing a complex kata, while an older man sits and observes. Considering how he looked at lunch time, he looks much better now, with only a few bandages remaining. I wouldn't say that Ranma is flowing through the kata, he's far too fast for that, but I have no trouble imagining a swarm of attackers falling to the punches and kicks that Ranma is tossing off. The kata ends and Ranma introduces me (grudgingly) to his father.  
  
Saotome Genma is probably the largest Japanese man I've seen who isn't a wrestler of some sort. I'm guessing his age at around 45 or so, and he's looks in pretty good condition except for a case of middle age spread.   
  
"Have you come to challenge my son?" Genma asks me after the introductions are finished.  
  
"No Saotome-san, I'm just here to practice in the dojo."  
  
"What form do you use?" he inquires, looking me over.  
  
"No form Saotome-san. It's just something I've come up with that works for me." Actually, I wasn't here to practice fighting. My strength maintenance routine requires a lot more free space than is available in my rented room. More privacy too. Plenty of both here if I get everyone to leave.   
  
"Hmm... Perhaps you could spar with Ranma then."  
  
"I've already promised Akane I'd spar with her after my workout."  
  
"Un!" Akane adds, smiling.  
  
Ranma looks at her as if noticing something different about her.  
  
"Well perhaps after that."  
  
"Maybe," I say, trying to think of a polite way to get everyone out of here. Akane saves me.  
  
"I'm going to do my homework now. Call me when you're ready."  
  
"Sure thing." Akane leaves, followed by a thoughtful Ranma and his father. Rain begins rattling on the dojo roof as I take off my T-shirt and toss it in the corner. I set up practice dummies in front of the doors to give me a moments notice in case anyone enters. I bow to the dojo sign and the tatami then walk to the center of the mat.  
  
I gather my power and will, drawing my telekinetic ability into a repeller sphere around me. Concentrating, I rise from the mat, slowly drifting to the center of the room. Once I'm there, I increase the pressure until I feel like a fly trapped in amber. Slowly, I begin to curl and stretch my arms and legs against the pressure, a workout with every motion. Sweat runs from my pores only to be caught in the repeller field and bounced around until it evaporates.  
  
After 10 minutes of this, I cut the sphere and drop to the floor. I rest for a minute and then back to it for another 5 minutes. Rest and then 5 more minutes. I don't have a name for this, but it incorporates some of the techniques of dynamic tension. It's also exhausting both physically and mentally. I burn half of my daily supply of telekinetic energy and can barely stand when I'm done. I finish with some stretches and get my wind back.   
  
I can't say that I really like this routine, but I can't argue with the results. I get strength and muscle mass without a lot of bulk to slow me down. I may not look that strong, but I can bench 350 kilos, which is a bit over 4 times my mass. I wonder how strong Ryoga is? Super-human for sure considering he was 6 meters in the air when I first saw him. No normal human can jump that high. Even I can't unless I use my powers. A minimum of twice my strength and probably higher. I'm juggling probable masses and distances and strengths when I remember my promise to Akane. I towel off a bit, and pull my T-shirt back on and head out the of the dojo.  
  
It's still raining as I get to the house proper. I knock and Kasumi, looking as beautiful as the last time I saw her, lets me in. After leading me to what looks like the dining room, I see Genma and Soun bent over a board playing what looks like a variant of chess.   
  
Soun looks up and asks, "How was your workout Anderson-san?"  
  
"It went very well Tendo-san. You have an excellent dojo." Soun beams at this compliment and I continue, "Do you have a bo I could use while I'm here? I wasn't able to bring mine from home."  
  
"A true martial artist doesn't need weapons," says Genma, who also moves a couple of pieces on the game board while Soun isn't looking.  
  
"I'm not a martial artist Saotome-san, so I guess that doesn't matter." I'm not sure if Genma is surprised by that comment or not. I can't read him well enough to be sure. Not that I really care.  
  
"I think there may be a few in storage, Akane will know where," Soun tells me as Akane enters the room. She's changed into her gi and is carrying a small black pig. A pig which is wearing a familiar bandana.  
  
"Who's this," I ask, "and what's his connection to Ryoga?" Soun goes a bit pale at this, Genma maintains his poker face and Akane looks at me like I've grown a second head. Soun knows something, but I've no idea what.  
  
"What do you mean 'connection to Ryoga'?" Akane asks heatedly. In a much sweeter voice directed at the pig, "You've never met Ryoga, have you P-Chan?"   
  
"Bwee bwee!" goes 'P-Chan' in what sounds suspiciously like an answer.  
  
"That pig is wearing the same style bandana that Ryoga had on when he attacked Ranma at lunch," I tell her.  
  
"Oh! That's why it looks so familiar," Akane declares. For some reason, Soun relaxes at this comment. Don't know why. "I never noticed that before."  
  
Gimme a break, you'd have to be blind to miss it. Forcibly pushing the matter out of my head I ask Akane, "Well, are you ready to spar?"  
  
All four of us and the pig head to the dojo. I'm guessing Soun and Genma want to observe my lack of style for some reason. We bow to the dojo, and I bow to the tatami, as is my personal habit. I ask Akane if she wants to warm up.  
  
"Not really, you don't get a chance to warm up in real life," she tells me.  
  
A commendable attitude, so I launch a kick at the same speed I used in our last match. She must have been expecting it, because she blocks it and my follow up punch. I stay on the attack, avoiding her counter moves and exploiting my reach advantage. My strikes are connecting with her arms and thighs, she's taking them without a problem. I grab the sleeve of her gi, but she counter-grapples and throws me. I roll with the throw, coming back to my feet and smile at her.  
  
"Fixed that little problem did we?"  
  
"Hai!" she says, smiling. Then she starts her own offensive.  
  
I block and evade for bit, her attacks increasing in tempo and power. Unlike our last fight, she's not being over aggressive, but attacking with discipline. After deflecting a particularly hard punch, she tries a high kick and I leg sweep her. I step back and allow her to get up and settle her gi. All this time Genma and Soun have been watching with the occasional comment between them. They haven't spoken to me or Akane, letting us spar in peace.  
  
"Anything special you want to work on?" I ask.  
  
"No, this is fine."  
  
"Mind if I get some bo work in?"  
  
She pauses before answering, "I'm not too good with weapons. Maybe you could spar with dad."  
  
"I don't think so. That isn't covered by my deal with Nabiki. She's already mad at me and I don't want to deal with her right now."  
  
"Oh? Why is my sister mad at you?"  
  
"She was taking pictures of me, I asked her to stop, she didn't, so I told her to stop, she didn't, so I broke her camera."  
  
"How could you!"  
  
"Well, I grabbed the camera an-"  
  
POW!! Must have been a rhetorical question.  
  
I'm knocked across the room and land on my ass. There is pain there and in my jaw where she got me. Nasty right cross that girl has. I guess I deserved it for being careless. I reverse shoulder roll to my feet in time to see Akane charging me, apparently in earnest. Her anger makes her faster and stronger, but it's also messes up her accuracy and technique. After dodging five strikes, she seems even madder and I decide to stop this before someone really gets hurt. A punch gives me what I need as I twist out of the way of the blow while grabbing her arm with both hands. A second later, I've got her pinned to the mat in an arm bar. She keeps resisting and she's strong enough that if it keeps up I'll either have to let her go or dislocate her shoulder. P-Chan looks ready to attack me. Loyal pig.  
  
"Akane! Stop!" I shout.  
  
"Akane! Stop!" Soun shouts.  
  
At her father's order, Akane stops struggling. I quietly ask her, "When I let go, are you going to be all right?" She nods without speaking. I release the hold and she scrambles to her feet before fleeing the dojo, crying. P-Chan glares at me, and trots off after her. For a moment there is no sound except for the rain on the roof.  
  
"I apologize on behalf of my daughter and myself Anderson-san."  
  
"No, Tendo-san. The apologies are mine. I could have stopped her without hurting her." He looks like he's about to start crying himself.  
  
"You were not hurting her. She was hurting herself."  
  
That's true, but I don't know what to say, so I remain quiet. I realize why Akane was upset, but I don't know why she reacted the way she did. Then again, I've never been good at dealing with women from my mother on. With my head held low I tell Tendo-san, "I don't think Akane and I should spar anymore."  
  
"I understand Anderson-san, but beg you to reconsider. Sparring with you Tuesday made Akane very happy and she's been looking forward to this. She's just a bit excitable."  
  
"If we'd have been here alone, I might have had to dislocate her arm to get her to stop. Worse, I'm not sure that _would_ have stopped her."  
  
"Please reconsider. If need be, myself, Genma or Ranma will supervise."  
  
"Will she listen to Saotome-san or Ranma?"  
  
"Myself or Genma then."  
  
Interesting that he took Ranma off that list. "I'll think about it."  
  
"Thank you. Now please excuse me while I look after my daughter." He leaves me in the dojo with Genma.  
  
"You were holding back," he says. It isn't a question.  
  
"Yes," I reply while I bow to the tatami and dojo.  
  
"For someone who is no martial artist, you fight well enough."  
  
"I get by."  
  
"Your technique is sloppy."  
  
"I don't do technique." He's trying to bait me.  
  
"Ranma is much better then you."  
  
"Yes he is. I've seen him fight twice now. He's very skilled and incredibly fast." This admission seems to surprise Genma a bit.  
  
"I could have him challenge you."  
  
"I wouldn't accept." Before this conversation can get any worse, the dojo doors open. I hope it isn't Ranma come to kick my ass for hurting his fiancee. Luckily for me, it's Kasumi who enters the dojo.  
  
"Uncle Saotome, dinner will be ready in ten minutes," Kasumi states in her lovely voice.  
  
"Well, that's my cue to leave." And grateful I am for it.  
  
"Oh, please stay for dinner Anderson-san. Or at least until the rain stops," she requests.  
  
I don't know why, but any thought of leaving flees my mind. It would be like kicking a puppy. Kasumi is the type of woman that you just can't refuse. Some day, she's going to make some lucky guy _very_ happy. Innocents like her are why I stayed in the hero business as long as I did. My innocent son is why I'm getting out. Somewhat against my better judgment, I decide to stay for dinner with the Tendos.  
  
END PART 2  
  
In Part 3: Dinner Discussions. (And a gratuitous fight or two.) 


	3. Dinner Discussions

PART 3  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High School. Jeff has met most of the Ranma cast, even getting involved in a fight between Ranma and Ryoga. He thinks that they are both meta-humans like himself. Nabiki is mad at him for destroying her camera, and he wound up on the receiving end of Akane's temper when she found out about it. While preparing to leave the Tendo dojo, Kasumi invites Jeff to dinner. You wouldn't turn down Kasumi would you? Even if the most of the household (and P-Chan) were mad at you?  
  
-----  
  
I look out of the dining room at the falling rain and wonder if this a good idea. I realize it's not a good idea, but I'm not willing to disappoint Kasumi. The thought of doing so makes me feel... dirty. I had already washed and changed into the last clean clothes I had with me. The Tendo's bathtub is huge, but I'm not one for soaking. Kneeling at the low table where Kasumi directs me, I feel like I'm entering a combat zone.  
  
Tendo Soun sits at the head of the table. I'm not worried about him. Saotome Genma sits next to him. Right before being invited to dinner, we were having a conversation that had been taking an... interesting... turn. He had been sizing me up ever since I got here. Not sure what he's thinking, but I doubt it's friendly. Next to him is his son Ranma. Ranma had been in a fight at lunch with someone called 'Ryoga'. I fought some as well, but without affecting the outcome much. He didn't look happy either.  
  
Next to Ranma was his fiancee, Tendo Akane. One of his fiancees anyway. She holds her pet pig, P-Chan, in her lap. We had been sparring earlier when I said something that upset her and she attacked me seriously. I had to restrain her before she did me or herself serious harm. After she settled down, she ran out of the dojo crying. She wasn't crying now, but I could tell she was still upset. The pig was glaring at me with hostility as well.  
  
Next to me was Akane's older sister Nabiki. She was avidly ignoring me. I first met her last Saturday when I was started using my cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High School. She was very helpful and even set up my rental of time at the Tendo dojo. I needed the room and the privacy that the dojo provided and was willing to pay the price for it. But since then, it was as if she was doing everything in her power to annoy me. She tried to sell me information about Kuno and Ranma. (Right in front of him!) Then she started taking pictures of me. For various reasons, I don't like being photographed. I admit that my reaction was excessive, crushing the camera in my hands (with help from my telekinesis), but I did pay for a replacement.  
  
Not much is said until Kasumi brings out the food. No squid or octopus or eel that I can see, so a little of the tension in my stomach goes away. Rice, seasoned potatoes, and stir fried veggies with beef. The food is passed around and we all begin to eat. Ranma must have learned his eating style from Genma, they are both scarfing food at a breakneck pace. I fumble with my chopsticks for a second before starting my own meal.  
  
The potatoes are wonderful. The stir fry is good, but it's not really my thing. The rice is rice. I politely turn down the proffered tea. I don't drink either green or brown tea. It's one of those "acquired" tastes that I never bothered to get. Like alcohol or coffee or tobacco.  
  
Blink. I could swear Genma just snagged a piece of beef off his son's plate. Blink. No doubt about it, he just tried again and was blocked. I take another bite of stir fry while observing the battle. Blink. All right, that was off _my_ plate. Pretty well done considering he's reaching across the table to do it. While I'm chewing, he snags one of my potatoes. Nope. Can't have the potatoes. They're mine.  
  
I concentrate in order to focus this just right. I place a small repeller field between Genma and my plate. Depending on how tightly he's holding on to his chopsticks, it should either bounce them out his hands or shatter them. With all the speed tricks and such I've seen since arriving in Nerima, everyone should think this is more of the same.  
  
I reach down, spear a chunk of potato, and very deliberately bring it up to my mouth. It's an invitation, I know. "The potatoes are delicious Kasumi-san."  
  
"Thank you very much Anderson-san."  
  
Crack! Genma sits there with his arm partway over the table, a pair of broken chopsticks in his hand.  
  
"Are you all right Saotome-san?" I ask quietly, checking the table for reactions. Soun, nonplused. Genma, mildly ticked as far as I can tell. Ranma, smirking. Akane, feeding her pig. She may not have noticed anything. Nabiki, poker faced, but she's been like that the entire meal.  
  
"Oh my," Kasumi quietly states, getting up and heading for the kitchen. She returns a few seconds later with a replacement set of chopsticks.  
  
Genma doesn't bother to answer me, he just takes the chopsticks and continues eating.  
  
"Getting slow Pops?" Ranma says offhandedly.  
  
"Jagaimo o kudasai" (I'd like some potatoes, please.) Really good potatoes. I leave the repeller field up. Once I set one, they don't take much concentration to maintain. Just in case he's stupid enough to try again.  
  
Crack!  
  
-----  
  
By the time dinner is over, the rain has stopped and the mood has lightened up a bit. Except for Nabiki's. She's planning something, and it won't be pleasant for me when she decides what to do to me. Akane is back to normal as well, apparently having put the entire dojo incident behind her.  
  
"Sure you don't want to spar with my son Anderson-san?" Genma inquires, continuing his efforts to size me up.  
  
"Yeah Jeff, it'd be fun." This from Ranma.  
  
I notice Nabiki paying close attention to the conversation.  
  
"Not today gentlemen. Besides, it wouldn't be a contest." Turning toward Ranma, I continue, "You're much better than I am. Even if I had my staff, you'd still stomp me. I'd just last a few seconds longer is all." (Genma can't be a slouch either, being Ranma's sensei.)   
  
I make my goodbyes and start my ride home in the fading light. Then I think about what I'd do in a real fight with Ranma. Nabiki might just try to instigate something there. My first impression of her is pretty much gone, replaced with the picture of a skilled manipulator. Too bad really, I liked the Nabiki that I first met.  
  
Hmm. No way I could take Ranma without using my powers or gear. With my full gear, I'd still lose unless Ranma made some serious mistakes. But all that stuff is back home. Can't do anything about it now. With my powers... I don't know... If I keep my TK under wraps, using it like I did tonight, I might be able to trick him and win. It wouldn't be a sure thing though. If I'm willing to blow my cover completely, I could take him. The ability to throw high speed punches doesn't do much good against someone who can telekinetically bounce your head off a wall from 40 meters away.  
  
Now Ryoga, on the other hand, I'm not sure I could stop with even with my TK. He's tough. It's very hard to beat an opponent who doesn't notice you hitting him. Could do the 'long fall' bit with him, if I blew my cover. Maybe. Hope he doesn't have a spare for that umbrella of his. Wonder what happened to it? I sincerely doubt he doubled back for it, considering he left his pack behind.  
  
I'm not really paying attention to my surroundings, so I almost miss it. A sporting goods store. Hmm. Gives me a few ideas. I don't have my regular gear, but I might be able to get a few substitutes. I whip around and head back.  
  
Upon entering, I see it's similar to back home. I check the prices for the two biggest matching aluminum baseball bats, a catcher's mask, a pair of binoculars and a box of 'energy' bars. I need the calories. Checking my wallet, I'm a bit short. It takes me a couple of minutes, but I ask a clerk where the nearest ATM is. A couple minutes later, I've got the directions and am on my way. It's only a few blocks, so I leave my stuff in the store and my bike chained out front and walk.  
  
The ATM access charges are outrageous so I pull out as much as I can. I finish up and find some things don't change, no matter where you are. Using an ATM after dark is one of them. It's always a sign for the local lowlifes to come out and play. It probably doesn't help that I'm a gaijin. I just get the money put away when I hear a voice.  
  
"Hand over the money, your watch and any other valuables too," says a dark-haired man in heavily accented English. I don't wear a watch. He looks to be about my age, is wearing black leather jacket over a black shirt with black pants. He has a butterfly knife in his left hand pointed at me. There are five more guys dressed the same in an arc behind him. The one farthest right carries a tire iron while farthest left spins a set of nunchaku. I don't see any weapons on the other three yet. No visible tattoos, so probably not Yakuza.  
  
"Go away, there are only six of you," I reply in Japanese. I'm in the mood for a fight, but I've got to give them a chance to back down. I expect some further posturing by the leader, but he surprises me by attacking immediately. One step to close the distance between us and he slashes the knife at my stomach. I bring my left foot back to adjust my stance and dodge his attack, grab his left arm behind the wrist with my right hand and twist hard in a standard disarming move. While the knife falls to the ground, I pivot and bring my left knee into his wide open stomach.   
  
By this time his friends start arriving. I plant my left foot, twist and launch a back kick at the one in front of me. He drops. I reset my stance and hop back a meter to avoid the tire iron. Before he can back hand me with it, I step forward, blocking his return swing. This also keeps him between me and the rest of them. I grab his shoulder with my left hand and pull, but the follow up strike with the heel of my right hand is off target. By the time I can extricate myself, another of the punks tags my chest with a wild swing over his friend's back. My wife hits harder.  
  
Two hops back to avoid the recovered tire iron wielder and get some room. When fighting multiple opponents, let them get in each others way as much as possible. By this time, the leader has picked his knife up and is shouting orders at the rest of them. The guy I kicked is still out of it. The three weapons users stalk toward me while the other two go help the downed guy. Tire iron to the right, nunchaku to the left and knife down the middle. The nunchaku have the most reach, so I attack him first. Long hop to the left and two steps forward. I feint a punch, drawing his attack. Snatch myself back out of range and charge in after his swing whistles past me. Punch to solar plexus, stopping him. Punch to stomach, bending him over. Elbow to the back, dropping him.  
  
Evade incoming knife thrust. Grab his foot when he tries a kick after that. Throw foot into the air hard enough to take his other leg out from under him. Jump 2 meters straight up because the two unarmed guys try to tackle me from behind. See them run into the guy with the tire iron, who had been circling around for an attack. Land and clock the leader of the pack before he can get up. Wait while the three remaining guys beat each other up for a bit. Mop the floor with the tire iron guy after he coshes the other two.  
  
I confiscate the weapons and start walking back to the sporting goods store. I use the knife to cut the leather straps connecting the two halves of the nunchaku. This leaves me with a couple of short batons similar to what are used in escrima. Not my staff, but I practice a lot of stick variations so I'm comfortable with them. After that, I snap the knife blade against the sidewalk, dropping the pieces, as well as the tire iron, down the nearest sewer grate. The batons and my Japanese/English dictionary trade places in my back pocket and I untuck my shirt to cover the switch.  
  
I get back to the store, buy the stuff I had spotted earlier and get home without further incident. Allowing for the time change, Anne should be up by now, and I haven't spoken to her in almost a week. It's long past time to call home. Since we may talk of things I don't want the NSA, NRO or other government agencies to hear, I run the conversation through my custom laptop's encryption protocols.   
  
The laptop is the only real tool I brought with me to Japan. It _looks_ like a oversized clunky old laptop. At least the folks at Customs thought so. The extra size helps hide the real goodies and helps with the heat flow. The CD-Rom drive can handle DVD's and the 3.5" drive is also a "super disk" reader. There are 21 processors, 16 P-III's wired for parallel processing, 4 dedicated math co-processors and to top it off, a 4 gig RAM chip from those nice folks at NEC. Not the fastest chip out there, but boy does it hold data. Couple of other goodies in there as well.  
  
The biggest problem is the heat build up. I use silver for my heat sinks, and there's a length of woven silver cable I can put in a cup of water to help keep things cool when the on-demand fans can't cut it. The other problem is the thing sucks serious juice. Working at full speed, the batteries are flat in under an hour. Lucky for me I seldom need it to work at full speed. It was the best portable machine I could build with my resources.  
  
Too bad it's obsolete.  
  
I stop wool gathering and dial the phone, bypassing the voice mail system. Running through encryption degrades the signal somewhat, but I after four rings my wife answers.  
  
"Hello?" Damn, I miss her.  
  
"Mushy mushy," I answer. Frigging satellite bounce time-delay. Give me land lines any day.  
  
"Jeff?!?"  
  
I can't help myself. "Anne?!?" I ask/shout trying to match her tone.  
  
"Oh God, it is you." I can hear the happiness and relief in her voice.  
  
"Keeping the home fires burning?" I try to keep my voice light and airy, but it's very hard when I'm here and would much rather be there.  
  
"Are you finished already?" Bless her, Anne knows I don't like interruptions when I'm in the middle of a project. But I miss her too much.  
  
"Not even close darling. I haven't downloaded today's results yet from Monster, but I'm not really expecting anything for at least another week." The length of time required was why I had bothered setting up such a detailed cover for my stay here in the first place. Since the entire project might take another month or two, it was easier to set up the student teacher thing as opposed to running around with a tourist visa.  
  
We talk for a good hour. How she is. How Lil' Bill is. How the team is. She misses me, but is otherwise fine. My son is sitting up and rolling over by himself. The team can damn well take care of itself.   
  
"So... How are you doing?" my wife asks. I can hear the care and concern in her voice.   
  
"Oh, it's been interesting. Found a place to stay that isn't too expensive. It's not very close to the school though. Bought a bicycle from a pawn shop so I can commute. They've got me teaching Math and English Lit if you can believe it. Met some nice folks. I'm renting time at a dojo to stay in shape. There's not enough room here for my workout routines." She knows which routines I'm talking about too.  
  
"My Japanese is coming along nicely. I'll have to take you out to a nice Japanese restaurant when I get home. Shock the heck out the staff." This earns me a brief time-delayed giggle, which is the nicest thing I've heard all week.  
  
"Ran into a couple of guys that I couldn't take in a fair fight. One of them has super strength, and the other has at least partial super speed."  
  
"Partial?" She's not thrown by the change in topic. She's used to that from me.  
  
"I've seen him fight twice and he's pretty fast. He shouted something about chestnuts, then punched the other guy so fast I couldn't keep track of how many times he hit him."  
  
"Chestnuts??" she says in disbelief.  
  
"I call 'em like I hear 'em. He said 'chestnuts'. His name is 'Ranma'. The strong guy is called 'Ryoga'."  
  
"You sure Ryoga is super strong?"  
  
"Yep. When I first saw him, he was 6 meters off the ground in the middle of a leap towards Ranma. He was carrying a 65+ kilo umbrella and waving it around like it was made of paper. I kicked him square in the back as hard as I could without using my powers and he _barely_ noticed."  
  
"Umbrella??" she laughs.  
  
"Don't laugh, he swung that thing hard enough to crack the sidewalk. But that isn't what convinced me he's a meta-human. During his fight with Ranma, he thrust a finger into the sidewalk and it exploded with enough force that I felt it through my repeller field."  
  
"..." Thought that would get her attention.  
  
"Convinced?" I ask.  
  
"uh, yes," she answers in a small voice before continuing, "Are you sure you're all right? This sounds a lot more dangerous than a recon mission."  
  
"I said I couldn't take them in a _fair_ fight. In an unfair fight, Ryoga might be a problem, but Ranma'd be toast. Besides, as far as I can tell, they don't have any connection to Mishima. Worse comes to worse, I'd just crank up the TK like I did for you and Bill." My telekinesis has a default level, but I've been known to go higher than that on occasion. Like when I first realized I loved Anne and again when Carnosaur threatened her. Or when that other lunatic tried to kill her when she was giving birth to Bill. A few other times.   
  
"You _know_ that's not reliable," she admonishes.  
  
It isn't. And the side effects happen even if the TK boost doesn't work. Doc Murchison says it has something to do with my adrenal glands and fatigue poisons. So far he hasn't managed to identify the exact mechanism, but boosting really screws up my endurance. Which screws up a few other things as well. From what we can figure, my theoretical maximum TK strength is somewhere around 22 Kilotons, but I'd burn out in a few seconds and drop dead immediately after.  
  
I hear Lil' Bill start crying in the background.  
  
"Well, you've got to go," I tell my wife. "Tell my son I love him."  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. But you already knew that." We finish our goodbyes and I wait for her to hang up the phone.  
  
I dial back into Monster and download today's results. No progress worth mentioning. I don't really feel like watching TV to work on my vocabulary so I think about Rich for a bit.  
  
-----  
  
Fastball was a member of the team, and we all let him down. He died on a submarine that went down in the North Atlantic. The rest of us never even made it to the sub. He had run ahead using his super-speed while the rest of us had been fighting some mercenaries in power suits on a hijacked cargo ship. From what we could reconstruct after the fact, he neutralized the warheads on board and trashed the sub's control systems before he died from massive heart failure brought on my unknown means.  
  
Life went on, as it always does. We had captured the mercenaries and Fastball wasn't the only corpse found on the sub when it was recovered, so I and the rest of the team thought the matter settled. It wasn't until almost six months later, when Anne and I came back from Canada, that I found that Richard Williams, alias Fastball, had left the bulk of his estate to Challengers Ink (the cover organization for our team) and to me in particular.  
  
It wasn't too surprising he knew my real name, even if I never knew his until he died. We all have "open in case of incontrovertible proof of death" kits. He had always been a smart bugger. Richer than I had thought as well. After estate taxes, there was about $2,000,000 in cash and bonds, $200,000 a year in chemical patent royalties for the next 10 years and a large building a mile from The Meadowlands across the river in Jersey.  
  
Unfortunately, the team didn't exist at this point, having fallen apart while Anne and I were in Canada. Anne had just told me she was pregnant, so we decided to head up to Canada to finish building our "retreat" home. I left Paul in charge when I left, but he botched his first mission as field leader, got in an argument with his wife that led to their divorce, and dropped out of sight leaving Jaime in charge. Jaime filled a couple of roster spots with his girlfriend, Nightblade, and some armored guy calling himself Limelight. (Yeah, the same woman whose back I broke. She got better and changed sides. Runs the team these days.) A month later Jaime disappeared into a temporal rift. This left a leadership vacuum which ended in the team disbanding. (I found out about all this after the fact.)  
  
Deciding to fulfill the spirit of Fastball's will, I managed to contact as many of the former members that I could and set up a meeting to determine if there still was a team and what role I would be playing in it. With Anne starting to show, I made it clear that my wife and child were my first priority. A few ideas were floated, but eventually a consensus was reached to reform the team under the name MATRIX.  
  
I stuck around long enough to see things started off right for the new team. Anne gave birth to William J Anderson while I was busy fighting some lunatic who claimed to be from the future and kept screaming that my son had to die. Messed me up pretty good too before I stopped him. While I was busy healing, I decided to check up on some of the details of the case where Fastball died. Least I could do considering what he left behind.  
  
I found the submarine he died in was a Vietnam era craft officially listed as "scrapped" by the Navy. Research indicated the craft was purchased and then refurbished by Mishima Heavy Industries. A week later, I found out the power suits worn by the mercenaries we fought while Fastball was getting killed were made by Mishima too. I had been trying to hack the Mishima computer systems ever since. I even began studying Japanese to help, before I found the JASON translation protocols. Kept up with it just in case.  
  
I wanted to know who had paid for the sub and the suits. If the people behind this were the ones found dead with Rich, fine. If they weren't, I'd present my findings to the team and leave it to them. Either way, this would be my last mission before I retired from the 'super hero' business to be with my wife and son.  
  
After a couple of weeks of effort, Monster and I had found traces of a back door into the Mishima Heavy Industries network. It would take some serious computing power to find the key to that back door, but to open and use it I'd have to be on site in Japan. Anne and I 'discussed' our options for a week before she agreed to let me go. (Actually, quite a bit of yelling was involved.) I came up with the 'student teacher' cover as a way to keep my stay in Japan more open-ended. I wound up at Furinkan High School because they had a high staff turnover rate.  
  
So here I am, pretending to be a student teacher at a Japanese high school while my computer tries to get me into a system that can tell me who paid the bills for the group that killed a colleague of mine over a year ago. Seems silly when I think it through, but I can't imagine not being here right now. I owe this to Rich, or to his memory, or legacy, or something. With thoughts like this running through my head, I fall into a fitful sleep.  
  
END PART 3  
  
In Part 4: Transformations 


	4. Transformations

PART 4  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High School. He's met most of the Ranma cast, and thinks that Ranma and Ryoga are meta-humans like himself. On his way home from dinner with the Tendo's, he was attacked by a street gang. They weren't a problem. He also called home, spoke to his wife and thought about exactly why he was in Nerima. He hasn't found out about Jusenkyo curses yet, but it's only a matter of time.   
  
-----  
  
The morning dawns crisp and clear, the clouds from last night having blown out to sea. Still some puddles on the ground here and there from the rain. I practice with the baseball bats I purchased last night, finding their balance. Same with the wooden rods that were a set of nunchaku last night. They feel good in my hands. I should have thought of this when I got here.  
  
I get ready for school and as I ride along, keep my eyes open for girls with purple or pink hair. No luck as I arrive at Ucchan's for breakfast. She's busy making okonomiyaki for the morning rush crowd. And doing a fine job of it too. I'm the last person to get in an order before she announces that she has to get ready for school.  
  
She slings a pork okonomiyaki at me, "Ohayoo sensei" written in hiragana on it in sauce. I laugh and dig in.  
  
"I'm running late, everybody out!" Ukyo tells the room at large. While I would think that the customers would object to this, they take it in stride and file out. According to the sign, she's only open for an hour in the morning and after school.  
  
"Need a lift to school?"  
  
"Thank you sensei, that would be a great help." She's busy cleaning the grill and putting away stuff with practiced speed.  
  
"When were not at school, you can call me Jeff."  
  
"Sure thing. I'll be right back." She disappears into the back, returning with books and spatulas a moment later. She ushers me out and locks up. She looks at the bicycle and then me.  
  
"You take the bike, I'll meet you there," I say as I begin jogging towards the school.  
  
"Yeah, right," she deadpans before climbing on the bike. I've got my stuff on the cargo rack, so I'm not worried about keeping up. My best time for the mile is 2 minutes 40 seconds. I'm a little tired from the ride here, so I probably couldn't do that right now, but it's not that far to the school. She pedals past me, and I increase my speed to catch up. She shifts up a gear, I match her. She shifts gears again and starts pedaling hard. I let her get away, but keep her in sight until she turns on to the street the school in on.  
  
I'm running at a nice clip when I see Ranko and Akane making their own dash for the school. Ranko is once again wet and dressed in loose clothing. Akane is in her school uniform. Ranma and Ranko are the only students I've seen not in uniform. Even Kuno changes out of his hakama before entering class. I slow down to allow them to catch up to me.  
  
"Running late again?"  
  
"Hai sens- Jeff," Akane puffs out.  
  
"Later". I pick up my speed, which Akane isn't able to match. "I've got longer legs, so I can run faster," I quote to myself. I'm a little late myself because of the extra practice with the baseball bats and stuff this morning. Ukyo has my bike parked at the rack for me when I arrive, I grab my stuff off the back and dash to the coach's shower just in time for the first bell.  
  
I've perfected the art of the 90 second shower and use a repeller field to wipe the excess water off me. I rub my hair with a towel and get dressed in 12 seconds. (An absolute must skill for a super hero.) I'm in the classroom with 30 seconds to spare. Serizawa-sensei isn't happy with me though. His ire takes the form of my taking over History for the day. My return shot should be the American perspective on Pearl Harbor, but I stick with the events leading up to the Meiji restoration as per the lesson plan.  
  
Kuno gives me hostile looks throughout the morning. Knows his stuff when it comes to 19th century Japanese history though. There just may be a brain in there after all. Nabiki still has her poker face up, which to me is an obvious sign she's up to something. Wish she'd let it drop. If she wants to play one upmanship, she's in danger of finding out how far up she can get.  
  
I turn the class back over to Serizawa-sensei, having made only three language mistakes bad enough for the class to laugh at. That's down from my first few days. At my small desk at the back of the room, I work on my lesson plans for English Lit and Math. Looking forward to Saturday when Serizawa-sensei has given me permission to do an hour on recreational mathematics. Maybe I'm taking this student-teacher cover too seriously. Well, if I'm going to do it, I may as well do it to the best of my abilities.  
  
The lunch bell rings and the class files out except for Kuno. I can see the arrogance in his eyes as he strides toward me.  
  
"Excuse me Anderson-sensei, I would have words with thee," Kuno declares in a serious tone.  
  
"How may I help you Kuno-san?"  
  
"Did you, or did you not, cause my beloved Tendo Akane to cry yesterday, hurting her... blah blah blah..." Somehow I can't focus on what he's saying, so I wait for him to stop speaking.  
  
"Yes, " I begin. I don't get to continue 'we were sparring' because Kuno interrupts.  
  
"FIEND! How dare thee injure my beloved! Blah blah blah... I challenge thee to a duel!"  
  
Wait a minute? Duel? I must have shown some surprise on my face, because he starts off on another rant.  
  
"Coward! Defiler of women! BLAH BLAH BLAH! Blah blah blah BLAH!!"  
  
Two or three years ago, I'd might have risen to this sort of bait. I like to think that I've grown up some since. I hold up my hand and wave at him to stop. Like with the punks who tried to mug me last night, I have to give him a chance to back down.  
  
"You really think this is worth fighting a duel over Kuno-san?"  
  
"Yes! It is a manner of honor, you who have none."  
  
"You realize as the challenged party I would have the right to set the terms?"  
  
"That matters not, I, the great 'Blue Thunder' of Furinkan High School, can defeat thee under any conditions."  
  
"You realize you haven't even heard my side of it."  
  
"I know what thou hast done to my beloved Akane blah blah blah..."  
  
"Tendo Nabiki told you about this, right?"  
  
"That matters not."  
  
Well, I got the admission I was looking for. Glad Nabiki didn't sic Ranma on me, that would have been dangerous. I need a way to teach her a lesson. This might work, but I think it'll still be lost on her. "As you wish Kuno-san. Send your second to me so we can make arrangements. Now excuse me, I'm late for lunch."  
  
The rumor mill works fast here. Before I reach the cafeteria, I hear whispers about the upcoming fight.   
  
"Him and Kuno-sempai..." "A duel..." "Did you hear..." "Big fight..." "I wonder what the odds will be..." I turn my head at that one.  
  
"Excuse me?" I turn to face a couple of boys standing together. I think I remember seeing them in the crowd after the fight with Ryoga, but I'm not sure.  
  
"Hai sensei." They both answer.  
  
"What's this about odds?"  
  
They look reluctant to answer me, so I just stare at them until the one on the left starts talking. "Well... Tendo Nabiki-sempai takes bets on all the fights around here."  
  
Somehow, I'm not surprised. If Nabiki had a middle name it would be "Anything for a buck". Well, this gives me an opportunity to beat her on two fronts. Not only will I get to earn some money off her, I get to beat her appointed champion. Maybe appointed catspaw would be a better choice of words. From the way he carried on, I'm certain Kuno was set up by her.  
  
I smile at the two boys. "How would you like to earn a little money then?" I ask. I can hear the cash registers ring in their heads. "The terms of the duel haven't been set yet. Would you like to sell Nabiki some advanced info?"  
  
"Hai Sensei!" Their enthusiasm draws attention from the rest of the student body. I'm tempted to tell them to bet the farm on me, but I don't want to be contributing to the delinquency of a minor.  
  
I motion them over and tell them in a quiet voice. "Athletic fields, half an hour after school, baseball bats. Until one of us surrenders or is unable to continue. Now go straight to Nabiki with this and don't let anyone else know.  
  
I work my way through the cafeteria line and sit at the end of one of the tables where I can easily be contacted by Kuno's second. I don't have to wait long before he arrives. A small, bucktoothed man wearing black from head to toe drops down from the ceiling and lands lightly besides me. I spotted him when he slipped in through a window a couple of minutes ago. Not too much reaction from the student body. They must have seen him before.  
  
"Jeffery Anderson?" he inquires.  
  
"Yes. I take it you are Kuno-san's second for the upcoming duel?"  
  
He nods amiably. "I am Sasuke, Master Kuno's humble servant."  
  
"The place: The Furinkan High School athletic fields. The time: one half hour after school today. The weapons: Baseball bats. The terms: Surrender, or until one of us is unable to continue. Are these terms acceptable?"  
  
"I will confer with Master Kuno."  
  
"Make it quick, lunch is almost over."  
  
He nods, and in a series of quick leaps, is out the same window he entered. While I'm waiting, I finish my meal. I notice Nabiki drift through the room, exchanging brief conversations with people. She stops at one table for a bit to chat with a group of young men from the Kendo Club. Scouting me out eh? I laugh to myself and almost miss the little man in black's return through the window. He scuttles across the ceiling beams and drops down besides me again.  
  
"Master Kuno states that your conditions are acceptable."  
  
I nod. "Thank you. I shall see you and your master at the time of the duel."  
  
The little man nods, again leaving the cafeteria in a series of leaps and bounds. My business here over, I return to the classroom. The afternoon passes quietly, Kuno and myself ignoring each other as proper dueling etiquette requires for opponents who can't avoid one another. Nabiki's concentration is split between the class, Kuno and myself. She's as much a part of this duel as Kuno or I, so I try to ignore her as well.   
  
Many notes are being passed around the room, much to the anger of Serizawa-sensei. A total of six people wind up in the hall carrying buckets before the flow of notes dries up. Eventually, the bell rings, releasing the students. I gather the English Lit quizzes that I'll be grading tonight and file them in my briefcase. I head downstairs to the gym and get changed for the fight. I was expecting trouble, so I packed accordingly. A pair of dark gray sweats, and an oversized brown t-shirt with a picture of "Schoolhouse Rocky" on the front and the engineer from "Conjunction Junction" on the back. A pair of sweat socks and my tennies complete the outfit.   
  
I take the baseball bats from my gym bag and examine them carefully for any signs of tampering. Always check your weapons when possible before going into battle. Always. There's no such thing as paranoia when they really are out to get you. The bats are all right and ready for use. Since I'm as prepared for the fight as I'm going to get, it's time to find Nabiki.  
  
I head outside and there is a sizable crowd gathered to watch the impending struggle. Ranma stands near Akane. Nabiki is taking money from various students. No sign of Ukyo, she's probably at her restaurant. I'll go see her after this is over with. Well, I'll go eat her cooking anyway. Ranma and his cousin have both fought Kuno, so I walk over to ask him a question.  
  
"Saotome-san, any advice?"  
  
"Well, if ya were using bokken, I'd say watch out for his speed. I don't know how he'll use a baseball bat," he says seriously.  
  
"What odds did Nabiki put on this?"  
  
Ranma laughs. "Well, once she found out how ya did against the Kendo Club, she set the odds at one ta two in your favor."  
  
"How's the betting?"  
  
"The Kendo Club is bettin' against ya, but the rest of it seems pretty well split. Not that I've been payin' attention or nuthin'."   
  
Ranma likes to play dumb, but I'm sure there's a brain in there someplace. "So, how much did you bet?" I ask offhandedly.  
  
"Nuthin'. I already owe Nabiki money, I didn't have nuthin' ta bet," he tells me. "If I did, I'd bet on you. I'd never bet on Kuno, he's an idiot."  
  
I thank Ranma and head over to Nabiki. I get there and pull out my wallet from my pants leg.  
  
"One to two?" I ask, but it's not really a question.  
  
"Hai Anderson-sensei, as long as you bet on yourself."  
  
I empty my wallet and pockets. 36,558 yen. "I'll be back for my winnings after the fight." Was that a little surprise break she had while she handed me my betting slip? As I walk off, Nabiki is swamped with people making new bets after seeing my confidence.  
  
I take my place on the field, and do a few stretches and strikes. Nothing too fancy or too fast. I've got a bat in each hand. I did say baseball bats, plural, when I set the terms for this little farce. Since I don't actually intend on fighting fair, I don't know why I put on the show.  
  
Kuno shows a few minutes before the appointed time, his second by his side. In place of his traditional bokken, he carries a wooden Louisville Slugger. Upon seeing my armament, Kuno pauses and says something to the little man, who then scurries over to me.  
  
"Master Kuno wishes to know why you are not agreeing to your own terms," Sasuke inquires.  
  
"Inform your master that I said 'baseball bats', I did not say how many or what type. If he wishes to surrender now, he may. If he wants to get another bat, he has until the appointed time." I nod and the little man turns to go. I get an idea. "Wait," I say. "If your master insists that the weapons be equal, he may choose either of my bats for his own weapon." The little man nods at me and scurries back to Kuno. They talk for a bit.  
  
The audience is eating it up. I admit that I'm playing to the crowd, but mostly, I'm playing to Nabiki. She instigated this, and I plan to make her pay for it. Sasuke scuttles back to me and asks to see my weapons. He looks them over for a few seconds and chooses the one in my right hand. He returns to Kuno, bowing and presenting the bat. He exchanges his wooden one for it and takes a few practice swings.  
  
"Anytime, Kuno-san," I say in a raised voice so that everyone can hear. I've got my repeller field up, and mentally reach for a lock on Kuno. I don't have it when he charges me, bat held high in a two-hand grip. His swing comes in an arc directed toward my skull. I reach up and catch the bat, first in the repeller field, then in my left hand. Now that I have tactile feedback from the bat, it isn't going anywhere.  
  
I allow Kuno to struggle against almost a ton of natural strength and telekinesis combined. His face rapidly becomes red as he strains to pull his weapon free. I bring my left arm down while raising my own bat in my right hand. The crowd is silent.  
  
"Do you surrender, or do I actually have to hit you?" I ask Kuno.  
  
"Thou will never defeat the 'Blue Thunder' of Furinkan High School with thy foul sorcery!" Well, I'm not using magic, but I do understand why he might think so. By this time his face is bright red and he could hurt himself if he doesn't slack off. I wrench the bat free from his hands.  
  
"There, you can no longer continue with the duel, you have no weapon and it would not be honorable of me to attack an unarmed man."   
  
My hopes that this will end it are dashed when he calmly steps back and says, "Sasuke, bat." His second bows and hands him the Louisville Slugger he had given up earlier. As soon as he sets his grip, he launches another attack.  
  
I cross block his swing, trapping his bat between my own, twist and snap a kick to his chest, knocking him down. He holds on to his bat, gets back up and comes at me again. I block with my left and shove my right bat into his gut. Not full force of course, just enough to get his attention. I give him a 10 for effort. He may be great with a sword, but the balance difference of a bat is giving him problems. The crowd is making noise again.  
  
He recovers faster than I thought possible and grazes the side of my head. If I hadn't had my repeller field up, or dodged when I did, it might have been a knockout blow. I roll with it a bit, mostly for show. I've underestimated his ability to adapt his sword styles. I jump back to gain some room. He attempts to follow up on his momentary advantage, which is what I want. He swings, and I counter swing. Wood meets aluminum and aluminum wins. His bat shatters into a thousand pieces. I've disarmed him twice, and I don't think he has any more bats.  
  
"Sasuke, bokken." The little man hands Kuno his trademark weapon. "Prepare to meet thy end sorcerer." From a clear sky, the sound of thunder rolls across the field.  
  
"You so much as point that thing at me, and I'll stop scr-" Once more, Kuno interrupts me with an attack. It's the same flurry of blows he used the other day against Ranma. The repeller field protects me from serious damage, but I can still feel the hits. I jump up a bit and let the force of Kuno's strikes push me out of the way of any additional hits. He charges me again, bokken in a striking posture. Block with the right and swing with the left. Again, another light strike to the midsection, as I don't want to really hurt him.  
  
"Is that feeble blow thy best attempt?" Kuno scoffs, preparing an assault.  
  
Fine, he can have it his way. I drop the repeller field around me and reset it to full force directly between us while I strike with both bats. It's like being shoved by an angry gorilla. It's enough to knock him end over end, but as he lands on his front, he still hangs to his weapon. Gotta give him credit for that. I go for a mental lock on Kuno again. This time I feel it click in. He might be able to thrash around a bit, but he's not going anywhere I don't want him to.  
  
I drop my bats, slap an arm bar on him and twist his wrist, forcing him to release his bokken. A flick of my foot knocks it out of reach.  
  
"You are _disarmed_. Now before I _break_ your arm... DO... YOU... YIELD?"  
  
"NEVER!!!" Kuno screams defiantly, as he struggles futilely against my TK.  
  
Tendo Nabiki, you caused this. You and your $&#**^% arrogance. Kuno is resisting to the best of his ability. By this time, Ranma has come over to observe how I've got Kuno pinned. I can't let him look too closely. He may notice that what I'm doing shouldn't be this effective, so regrettably, I dislocate Kuno's right shoulder. Between that and a kick to the head, Kuno's pain system finally overloads enough to render him unconscious.  
  
I march over to Nabiki, present my bet slip and demand, "54,837 yen, pay up." There is a trace of fear in her eyes as she counts out the money. There damn well should be considering the look I'm giving her. I take the money and look over to where Kuno lies. Sasuke is attending to him and it looks as if he has already popped the shoulder back in. I turn back to Nabiki and start speaking in English.  
  
"Kuno-san told me that you told him about Akane crying. Just wind him up and let him go huh? That beating he took was totally unnecessary. I didn't enjoy giving it, and I'm damn sure he didn't enjoy getting it." I don't know how much of this the rest of the crowd is getting, but they are getting the gist of it. "This was all because you just HAVE to get the last word. You HAVE to be right. You HAVE to come out on top. And to HELL with anyone else. We are all just money bearing playthings to you. Nobody else's feelings are real. No one matters excepts you."  
  
"THAT'S NOT TRUE!!" she screams at me.  
  
"Tell Kuno-san that when he wakes up." I turn and go back to the field for my baseball bats. As I get close to Kuno, Sasuke jumps in front of him and reaches into his sleeve for something. By reflex, I reset the repeller field.  
  
"Wait," I tell him, holding my hands up, "I just want to talk. When he wakes up, apologize to him for me. He was tricked into this fight by Tendo Nabiki. He probably won't believe that, but it's true."  
  
"I will offer Master Kuno your apologies once he awakens," Sasuke tells me.  
  
I nod and he scoops Kuno up in a fireman's carry, sagging heavily against the weight. Pretty strong fellow considering his size. Feeling more like a loser than a winner, I trudge back into the school, shower again and change into my riding gear. Ranma is waiting for me by the bike rack. Great. Probably pissed at me for yelling at his fiancee's sister. The crowd from earlier is long gone.  
  
"Hi Ranma." Unlock bike from rack.  
  
"Yo, sensei." A normal tone, so far so good. "Nice fight there against Kuno. Liked how ya caught that first swing."  
  
"Ranma, that fight wasn't against Kuno, it was against Nabiki."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Nabiki set the whole thing up. She told Kuno something that made him mad enough to challenge me."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"It was revenge for breaking her camera." Pull bike from rack.  
  
"Didn't ya replace it?"  
  
"Must have been her favorite camera."  
  
"No, she keeps that one at home."  
  
I ponder that for a bit. "I'm heading to Ucchan's for some food. Want to join me? I'll buy."  
  
"Sure thing sensei." Ranma definitely thinks with his stomach.  
  
We leave the school grounds, and I walk the bike along side of me. As we go along, Ranma leaps up on to a fence and continues walking like it's nothing special.  
  
When I give him a questioning look, Ranma tells me, "It's balance training. Pops says you can make almost anything into martial arts practice."  
  
"Hmm... Ranma, what is it about your dad? He's been sizing me up ever since he laid eyes on me." Good a time as any to find out.  
  
"Just checkin' out what he _thinks_ is competition. Normally when someone shows up in Nerima, it's either ta challenge me or marry me, or marry Akane or sumthin' like that."  
  
"I assure you, I don't want to marry you or Akane," I say laughing.  
  
"Who'd wanna marry that uncute macho tomboy anyway?"  
  
"I don't know... she's got a great smile." Me thinks he doth protest too much. "Besides, I'm already married."  
  
"What?!?"  
  
He misses his step, loses his balance and falls into the canal that we've been walking beside. There is a big splash and all of a sudden I'm looking at a dripping wet Ranko.  
  
"WHAT!!" I shout, not at the top of my lungs, but loud enough to be heard for quite a distance. Then a series of images run past my mind's eye. Click. Ranko wearing the same clothes as Ranma, only looser. Click. Never seeing Ranma with his cousin. Click. P-Chan's bandana. Click. The kids with the water pistols. Click. RYOGA! Hell, Cheshire Cat got turned into a talking cat once. I should have figured this out by now! AARRGGHHH!!!  
  
"i'm gonna kill him," is what I say first. I do it so quietly, I barely hear myself. "I'm gonna kill him." This repetition is in my normal voice. Before I work my way up to shouting, my brain turns back on. Wait. Get the facts first. Running off half cocked is why Kuno got his arm dislocated.  
  
By this time, Ranma has pulled him... her... self out of the water.  
  
"Well, now ya know."  
  
"Ukyo know about this?" I ask.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"She know Ryoga is P-Chan?"  
  
"I'm not sure. Hey! How did ya figure that out?"  
  
"After seeing you change, it was obvious. Does Akane know about Ryoga?"  
  
"No, and I'm sworn on my honor as a martial artist not to tell her. I've dropped enough hints, but she just don't get it."  
  
Well, I'm not a martial artist. So I'm off _that_ hook. "We'll discuss this at Ucchan's." I've got some thinking to do.  
  
"Yeah, well, I need hot water to change back anyway."  
  
He steps under a bridge to wring out his clothes the best he... she... can. I'd offer hi- her some clothes if I had any clean stuff left in my bag. I doubt they would fit, as the female Ranma is a fairly petite thing. We walk on in silence. Hot water to change _back_, so probably colder water to change. Ranma turns into a girl version of himself. Ryoga turns into a pig. Must make rainy days interesting. Wonder who they crossed to get this way? Considering how good a fighter Ranma is, if he could fight someone to get changed back, he'd have done it by now. Wonder if there are more of them? I've got a lot more questions than answers by the time we get to Ucchan's. I lock my bike to a nearby lamp post and we go in.   
  
Ukyo takes one look at the two of us and uses her big spatula to flip a tea kettle at Ranma. She snatches it out of the air with practiced ease and gingerly pours some on her head. I watch as her hair shifts from red to black, she gains several inches and her breasts disappear while the rest of her musculature fills out leaving Ranma looking as male as he did earlier.  
  
"Ya get full marks. Most people freak when they see me change the first time."  
  
"How did it happen?" I ask, sitting down near the end of the counter.  
  
Ranma tells me a long story of training journeys, cursed springs, Chinese Amazons, rivalries, multiple engagements and enough weird stuff to make my life look almost normal. I try to ask as few questions as possible, only when I can't understand a particular word or phrase. I avoid questioning the specifics. Ukyo serves us okonomiyaki while we talk, occasionally joining in when she has time between customers.  
  
I let him wind down before I go for the recap. "You turn into a girl, your father turns into a panda, Shampoo turns into a cat," Ranma shudders at the word 'cat', "and Mousse turns into a duck." By unspoken agreement, I don't mention Ryoga.  
  
"Yeah," Ranma says around a mouthful of food.  
  
"Cold water activates the curse, hot water changes you back. And as far as you know, there is no cure."  
  
"Nuthin' that's worked so far."  
  
Damn, it's magic and there's nothing I can do to help him with it. Every time I seriously mix with magic, bad things happen. Like the demon that got loose in Central Park. Golem X possessing Walt. The entire Emerald Shard of Emalia affair.   
  
"Sorry, magic is a little bit out of my line of work. Don't know how I could help."  
  
"You're takin' this pretty well. I can tell ya believe me, but ya don't seem... surprised."  
  
You want a disgusting transformation, go watch Fester change shape. Ranma's change is quick and clean by comparison. "I've seen some weird stuff in my day. Jusenkyo is weird, but not too weird."  
  
Ranma makes a noise halfway between a grunt and a laugh. "What do ya consider too weird?"  
  
I'm tempted to tell him, but truthfully I don't remember much of it. Emalia was definitely too weird. I fall back on my habit of changing the topic. "Long story, maybe later." I look over and Ukyo is greeting a batch of new customers. I lower my voice. "We need to talk about Ryoga."  
  
He pauses in mid bite and sets his chopsticks down. "I've done every thing I could and more ta get Akane ta figure it out."  
  
"I figured it out."  
  
"Yeah, but you're some kinda genius. Your Japanese is better now then when I first met ya. You're learning it as fast as I learn new techniques." Knew Ranma had a brain in there. "Well, maybe not _that_ fast," he says under his breath.  
  
"Could Akane already know, but not care?"  
  
This stuns Ranma for a few seconds before he shakes his head. "Doubt it. If she knew, she'd be friendlier to Ryoga."  
  
"I could tell her if you can't."  
  
I can hear the mental gears turning inside Ranma's head while he thinks on my offer. After a couple of minutes while I eat quietly and finish my water, Ranma looks up toward Ukyo. Making sure she's busy at the grill, he quietly tells me, "no, that would be... bad."  
  
I ask the obvious question, "How bad?"  
  
Very quietly he answers, "multiple murders bad. akane'd kill me and ryoga for sure."  
  
Maybe he's overreacting, maybe he's not. Akane does seem to have a bit of berserker about her. Since this affects him, he gets the benefit of a doubt for being the guy at ground zero. "All right, I won't blab to Akane. But if I get Ryoga or P-Chan alone, his ass is mine."  
  
"Whose ass is yours?" asks Ukyo, having brought a pitcher to refill my glass. Damn, didn't notice her walk up.  
  
Think fast Jeff. "Kuno-san's if he tries anything tomorrow." It's not the answer to her question, but it's true none the less.  
  
"I dunno, he's stupid and persistent," Ranma says, apparently agreeing to keep Ryoga's name out of it.  
  
"I can stop him easily enough. I just don't want to seriously hurt him. Nabiki instigated the fight, it doesn't seem fair to keep beating on Kuno-san because of it."  
  
"Too late for that," Ranma comments.  
  
"If you want, I can talk to Nabiki," Ukyo informs me.  
  
"You think it'll help?" I ask.  
  
"Probably not." "Maybe." come from Ranma and Ukyo respectively.  
  
It's almost dark by now, and I have papers to grade, so I pay Ukyo for the food, rounding it up to an even 5000 yen. I'm feeling generous with Nabiki's money. Before Ukyo can offer change, I'm unlocking my bike and riding off into the fading light. Ranma can sure pack it away, it's not _that_ big a tip.  
  
As I grade the papers, I find Nabiki has one of four perfect quizzes. That doesn't surprise me. I check with Monster for progress on hacking the Mishima network. Nothing. That doesn't surprise me either. I go to bed and dream of being home with my family. That surprises me least of all.  
  
END PART 4  
  
In Part 5: Getting used to Nerima. 


	5. Getting Used to Nerima

PART 5  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High School. He's met most of the Ranma cast, and thinks that Ranma and Ryoga are meta-humans like himself. Nabiki manipulates Kuno into challenging Jeff to a duel. Jeff accepts and wins, taking Nabiki for 18,279 yen in the process. While walking to Ucchan's, Jeff sees Ranma transform. He immediately figures out Ryoga is P-Chan. Ranma tells him about Jusenkyo, and convinces Jeff not to blab to Akane. It's the next morning and Jeff is getting ready for the aftermath.  
  
-----  
  
Riding to school, I think it's kind of weird. Normally, Japanese schools have a half day on Saturday two or three times a month. But apparently, Furinkan is having full days on Saturdays to make up for some lost time. It's annoying, but understandable.  
  
The kilometers fly by this morning, but Ucchan's is closed by the time I get there. Dang. I had got up early just to eat here. Then I remember Ukyo said she was going to talk to Nabiki. I hope she didn't close down just for that. Sighing, I ride the rest of the way to the school. One of the energy bars I bought Thursday night becomes breakfast. After my shower, I head back outside. Kuno will be coming along sooner or later. I _have_ to end this and delaying won't make it any easier.   
  
I'm waiting for Kuno when Nabiki and Ukyo walk up to me. "Ohayoo Kuonji-san, Tendo-san."  
  
"Ohayoo Anderson-sensei," they say more or less in unison.  
  
Ukyo nods at me, I nod back, she heads for the school doors, leaving Nabiki with me. Neither of us want to go first, but I'm not interested in wasting time. "Have you spoken to Kuno-san yet?" I start.  
  
"Hai."  
  
"Will he attack me anyway?"  
  
She pauses a moment to think. "Hai."  
  
I sigh. "I _should_ dislocate your shoulder, just for drill." She glares at me icily. "But it wouldn't help," I continue. It would just make her madder at me anyway. Before anything else can be said, a voice rings out from across the grounds.  
  
"Stand aside from Tendo Nabiki so that the 'Blue Thunder' may smite thee!" It's Kuno all right. Dressed in his hakama, right shoulder bound in a sling and left hand holding his trademark bokken pointed straight at me. I have to admire his tenacity, if not his intelligence. I step away from Nabiki, just in case.  
  
"You did not defeat the great 'Blue Thunder'! T'was some sorcerous trick that held fast my limbs!" he rants as he strides toward me.  
  
I raise my voice so I'm sure he can hear me say, "You're right, it was a trick. One that I'm ready to use again."  
  
"Eh?" The puzzlement is clear in Kuno's tone as he slows to a stop. Whether it's because I agreed with him or that I'm ready to 'trick' him again, I don't know. So in the coldest voice I can muster, I give the speech I came up with last night.  
  
"Kuno-san. Hear these words and know them to be true. Point that thing at me _ever_ again and I will remove _any_ chance of your EVER fathering children. IS... THIS... CLEAR." My declaration gets the attention of most of the surrounding crowd.  
  
Kuno focuses himself on the here and now like I've never seen him do in class. Somewhere in the fantasy land he normally resides in, my message has reached his brain. His face betrays the inner battle he is having with himself, his instinct for self preservation at war with his ego. It's a long battle, but his bokken slowly drops to his side. Resettling his warrior persona, he turns and strides away.  
  
Nabiki looks at the retreating kendoist before turning to me. "Nice bluff," she tells me.  
  
"Bluff?" I deadpan before heading to the school doors. I can't see her face at this point, but I do think she gets the message too.  
  
-----  
  
The morning goes without major problems for me. The English Lit quizzes are returned and questions discussed. Lunch rolls around and I head outside to see what today's fight will be about. I notice Ranma running from some pretty girl in a gymnast's outfit during lunch, but figure he can handle it himself. I find out from a student that the gymnast is Kuno's younger sister Kodachi, who goes to an all-girl school somewhere nearby. So that's what she looks like. Must have only had a half day today. A bit later, female Ranma runs past in the other direction chased by both Kunos. As long they leave me alone, I'm going to enjoy my lunch.  
  
Through lunch, the play stays the same, but the actors keep changing. At one point the purple haired girl I saw a few days ago, Shampoo from Ranma's description last night, is in the mix. She is being chased by a long haired young man dressed in white robes. Must be Mousse. Ukyo and her giant spatula are involved in a couple of run-bys and Akane appears every so often swinging various large blunt objects. Other than a large hole in one of the first floor classrooms, not much damage is done. Once the warning bell rings, the action breaks up with Akane getting the last lick in, clonking Ranma (male again) with her mallet. (Where _does_ she keep that thing?) As soon as the fight is over, repair crews start rebuilding the broken wall. Pretty efficiently too. I could use folks like them to clean up after some of the fights I've been in.  
  
Later, I find out why Serizawa-sensei agreed to let me have the last hour of class on Saturday. The students are all busy thinking about having tomorrow off and not paying much attention. I work my way through a brief statistics paradox and the start the four fours problem when I figure out a way to get some of their attention back.  
  
"Just to make it a little more interesting, I'll give 2000 yen to whoever can take the four fours problem the farthest by Monday. Start at 1 and hit each integer. You can't use logarithms, infinity or rounding functions." Well that worked, if they won't give you their attention, it can still be bought. Most of the heads in the class bend over desks and furious scribbling can be heard.  
  
"You have to bribe students to perform in America Mr. Anderson?" Serizawa-sensei asks in his British sounding English.  
  
"I believe in one thing when it comes to education. Whatever works, go with it. They'll work harder for cash than for a pat on the head."  
  
"What if you cannot afford to keep bribing them?"  
  
"I'll burn that bridge when I come to it." My mixed metaphor may have confused him. His response takes a few seconds to begin.  
  
"Remember, I will still be working with these students long after you leave. Please do not make my job any harder than it already is."  
  
While there are many things I'd _like_ to say in response to that, what I actually tell him is, "As you wish Serizawa-sensei. No more cash scholarships." That's as close to a dig as I can get away with. The Japanese spend a lot more time in school than I ever did. From what I've seen this week, this helps with rote learning and recall speed, but isn't so great for lateral thinking, interpretation and creativity.  
  
Class ends for the day and the student body disappears like a mirage. I stay for a while, writing a report on my weekly activities as if I were a real student-teacher. Attention to detail is the key to maintaining a successful cover. Theoretically, this report gets filed with the school, and a copy is faxed to CUNY, along with a copy of Serizawa-sensei's comments on my performance. Actually, the fax gets routed to one of my data drops. Memo to self, see what Serizawa-sensei has to say about me. It might be good for a laugh. Memo to self, remember to extract local copies prior to departure.  
  
I change clothes and ride over to the Tendo Dojo. Kasumi lets me in, and once again I'm amazed by her quiet beauty. I see where Akane gets her smile from. Tendo Soun and a large panda are playing shogi on the porch. Since I know about the transformations now, I guess Saotome-san isn't bothering to stay human for me.  
  
"Ah, Anderson-san. I had Akane bring out a selection of staves for your use," Soun informs me. While his head is turned, the panda takes a moment to rearrange the pieces on the shogi board.  
  
"Thank you very much Tendo-san," I respond, bowing to him. As I turn to head to the dojo, he begins speaking again.  
  
"Ranma tells me you are married Anderson-san."  
  
What the?? Where did _that_ come from? "Uh... Yes Tendo-san." I pull out my wallet, and fish out my one picture of Anne and Lil' Bill. Holding the picture out, I tell him, "My wife, Anne, and my son, William."   
  
From nowhere, Kasumi pops up, taking the picture from my hand. "Oh, he is so cute," Kasumi gushes before asking, "How old is he?"  
  
"Four months. That picture was taken last month." I'm not sure, but the panda looks relieved. Soun looks ready to cry though. What the heck is going on? Kasumi shows her father and Genma/panda the photograph and looks at it again before handing it back to me.  
  
"That is a beautiful wife and son you have there Anderson-san," Tendo says.  
  
"Oh, that is such a cute outfit," Kasumi observes.  
  
"Uh... thank you, thank you both." I put the picture back where it belongs and excuse myself to the dojo.  
  
When I enter, neither Akane or Ranma are there, but there are a dozen staffs of various sizes propped against the wall. I run through a quick workout before checking them out. I take a few practice swings with four of them before I find one that I like. A little light, but I can work with it.  
  
I set up a practice dummy and make a few experimental strikes. Definitely not as strong as what I use back home. But this is wood after all, not hardened aluminum alloy. Might accidentally break this with a full power strike. Probably break it with a TK backed strike. I test a few of the other staffs, looking for something stronger, but settle on the one I had been using. I bow to the dojo and the tatami and get to work.  
  
I begin twirling the staff at high speed and limber up. These aren't really fighting moves, these are for fun. Spin, spin, turn, spin, spin, strike, spin. Spin, kick, kick, spin, strike, spin, spin, leap, spin. Spin, switch hands behind my back, spin, kick, strike, strike, block, turn, spin. Ho! He! Ha! Guard, turn, parry, spin, thrust. Spin, spin, notice Ranma enter the dojo, stop.  
  
"Sorry, didn't wanna interrupt," Ranma tells me.  
  
"That's o.k., I was just fooling around a little." There are only two reasons he would be here right now.  
  
"Wanna spar?"   
  
And it's reason number one. "Is this your idea or your dad's?"  
  
"Mine," he states with a trace of annoyance.  
  
"Well go ahead and pick a staff."  
  
"I'll use that one," he says pointing at the one in my hands.  
  
"This one's mine." It doesn't take a genius to figure out what he'll say next.   
  
"Not for long."  
  
Since I was expecting it, I survive his first attack. He's moving fast, but not as fast as he was when he was dodging Kuno or punching Ryoga. Maybe the fact that I'm warmed up is what's saving me. I attack with short thrusts and other moves intended not to let him attempt a disarm. None connect. He moves in close and tags me three times before I can adjust. They ain't love taps either. I go low line, he attempts to jump over my swing, but I adjust fast enough to catch him in mid air. Not hard, but it's enough to put him off balance for a split second.  
  
I follow up as fast as I can with strike to his shoulder, but he simply moves ahead of the blow, not allowing it to connect. I block his foot sweep with my staff and he grabs the lower end. A brief test of strength leaves the staff in two pieces.  
  
"What ya gonna do now your weapon's broke?" Ranma asks me while he steps up the speed of his attacks. So far, I'm still able to dodge or block with what is left of the staff. I feint a kick, but he doesn't bite. Before I can follow up, Ranma slams a double punch past my guard that knocks me halfway across the dojo. I sit up and Ranma is in the middle of a flying kick destined for my head.  
  
First mistake he's made. Without anything to brace himself against, he can't do much about my next move. Dropping the remains of the staff, I grab his lead foot in both hands, throw myself onto my back and _heave_. I don't get to hold on too long, as he kicks my hands off with his free foot. Ranma reorients himself in mid air and makes a credible landing, skidding a bit on impact.  
  
"Against you... lose real bad," I say as I prepare for the next round. Although I might be a bit stronger, and the speed seems closer to equal than I thought, Ranma's technique is far superior to mine. It's not that he's so much faster, it's he knows exactly what to do and when to do it. As the match goes on, I find his endurance compares well with mine. After his second aerial attack winds up with him face down on the mat, he stays on the ground and proceeds to pick me apart. Maybe one punch in six of mine is hitting him when he's defending, and he's connecting about one in three when I defend all out. When I try to go on the attack, his counter moves connect at will. Only when I grapple does Ranma seem to have any problems at all, but he adapts quickly.  
  
Finally, he downs me with a kick and I tap the mat twice, indicating I don't want to continue. "As your father said the last time I was here, 'You were holding back.'" That attack against Ryoga was much faster than the punches he threw at me.  
  
"Maybe a little. We're just sparrin', I wasn't using any special techniques."  
  
"Like that chestnut thing?" It's _not_ a meta-human ability?  
  
"Yeah, or that strike you used against Kuno."  
  
Looks like he caught me at it after all. "That wasn't a special technique, that was a trick."   
  
"Looked like a chi technique."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I'm not sure if I can explain it. Everybody has chi, ya see. Martial artists and a few other folks can focus their chi and use it various ways," Ranma says while leaping up to the ceiling and grabbing on to a cross-beam. Nothing I couldn't do myself, but it's still impressive.  
  
"You mean 'Use the Force, Luke'?"  
  
"No... well sorta... maybe... no. I'm no good at explainin' stuff. The old ghoul knows more about it than I do." He lightly drops to the floor next to me.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Shampoo's great-grandmother, Cologne. I just call her 'old ghoul' cause that's what she reminds me of."  
  
"Ah..." After a moment I ask what can be done with chi. The list is fairly long. Super-human leaping is a basic chi skill. Strength or speed enhancements are almost as common. Visible battle auras seem to be a side-effect if not a chi ability. Increased endurance and accelerated healing rates are possible. Special attacks like the Kacchu Tenshin Amiguriken and others like the Bakusai Tenketsu. Tendo Soun is supposed to have a special technique or two. Projecting your chi is possible, but Ranma says he can't do that. Yet.  
  
It seems almost as flexible as magic, to which I'm guessing it's related. I think back over the long list of people I've fought with and against. Could some of those been conscious or unconscious chi users? It's possible, and the concept helps explain a few things I've always wondered about. Definitely going to have to make a report back to the home office about this. It opens up a whole new area to consider.  
  
Ranma has stopped talking and is looking at me look distracted.  
  
"Sorry about that Ranma, it's just this chi thing has given me a lot to think about."  
  
"Why should it bother ya? Ya already use the stuff."  
  
"Ranma, I assure you, that wasn't chi. I admit it was a trick, but it wasn't chi."  
  
"Ya mean like a pressure point?"  
  
Bless him, he's given me an out, even if I don't know what he's talking about. "Something like that, but it's a secret, so please don't ask me to explain or even demonstrate."  
  
"That's O.K." he shrugs, continuing, "Ya know, ya did pretty good. Most people can't hit me at all."  
  
"Oh please, you wiped the floor with me. And by your own admission, you weren't going all out."  
  
"Well, I think you'd do better in a real fight."  
  
No doubt. But in a real fight I use weapons and telekinesis, of course I'm better. Curious, I ask Ranma, "How well do you fight when you're a girl?"  
  
Ranma looks upset for a second or two before he calms down enough to answer me. "Not as strong, shorter reach, my endurance drops, but I'm much faster. Better pain resistance too. You'd have hit my girl form a lot less often. But my hits on you wouldn'ta been as hard. It's o.k. for defense, but not much else." A surprisingly forthright admission. Shows that he knows his limitations as well. My respect for the young man goes up another notch.  
  
Finally, I decide to bring up the topic that's been bugging me since I got here. "Ranma, why does Tendo-san care if I'm married?"  
  
Ranma laughs out loud. "Well ya know how he and Pops got me and Akane engaged? I think Tendo-san was scopin' ya out for Nabiki or Kasumi," he tells me with a giant grin on his face.  
  
"WHAT!!" My jaw drops to somewhere just off the floor.  
  
Ranma holds on for a few seconds before he breaks out laughing again. I break out laughing a few seconds later. It's a long while before I get back under control.  
  
"Nabiki is _really_ not my type," I inform Ranma with as straight a face as I can manage. I can't imagine _dating_ Nabiki let alone marrying her. Heck, I can't imagine _anyone_ dating Nabiki. Not unless they've got _really_ deep pockets. If I weren't already married, I could imagine spending time with Kasumi though.  
  
"Yeah, and the only reason Tendo-san would set you up with Kasumi is to get Tofu-sensei off his butt."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Tofu-sensei... He's our family doctor. She likes him, I think, and I _know_ he likes her. But... he acts kinda weird when she's around."  
  
"Sounds like the man needs to get a grip." Anyone who doesn't ask Kasumi out the first good chance they get is an idiot.  
  
"Seriously." Ranma starts cracking up again. Why, I don't know.  
  
Well, I got my curiosity bump scratched, but I'm no longer in the mood to practice. So I pack up my stuff and head to my rented room a little earlier than expected. I need to do laundry, so I head off for the laundromat I spotted when I moved into this place.  
  
The Japanese have vending machines everywhere and you can get just about anything out of them. While my clothes are washing, I score dinner. Not that great, but it's food I don't have to cook. While my clothes are drying, I rough out my report on chi for the home office. I throw in a rough estimate of Ranma's combat abilities, and fine down some calculations of Ryoga's estimated strength level.  
  
Let's see. g = 980 cm/sec/sec... h = 600 cm... t = 0.5... Ignoring air friction... For t to = 0.5 and h = 600, the maximum height of the leap is in... the 10.5 to 11 meter range. Assume he came off the fence, so subtract 2 meters... He landed about 10 meters from the fence so his initial velocity had to be... around 13.5 meters/sec. That's faster than me running full out. I can't even guess how much of that jump can be attributed to chi. Without chi, I'd estimate Ryoga's strength somewhere in the 1.5 to 2 ton range. That's if the leap he made was near his maximum effort and all my assumptions are correct.  
  
Even if his strength is aided by chi, he'd _still_ have to be strong to wave around that umbrella so effortlessly. Not to mention cracking the sidewalk with the umbrella and smashing Ranma into the school wall the way he did. Didn't see him at the dojo today. If I had, I'd have splashed him and had a nice long talk with P-Chan. Kicked his ass some too. Against somebody as dangerous as him, I'm not worried about fighting fair.  
  
After getting everything dried and folded, I head back to my room and fire up the computer and the modem. Maybe I can catch a movie or a ball game or something if it's quiet.  
  
When I connect with Monster, I find some very good news. The back door into Mishima Heavy Industries was used today. Monster even got part of the access key. This should cut a couple of months work down to a couple of weeks tops. He was also able to trace the origin of the hack to a residential apartment complex on the west side of Nerima. Unfortunately, not to the exact apartment. Looks like my fun and games are canceled. It's recon night and I've got work to do.  
  
First things first though. I dictate a report on chi to the home office, and throw in descriptions of Ranma and Ryoga along with estimates of what they can do for the files. All of us in MATRIX report on the various meta-humans, bad guys and other interesting people we meet. Comes in handy in case we cross paths again. Ranma has what it takes to be one of the good guys, and I'm afraid Ryoga has what it takes to turn into a threat.  
  
Afterwards, I head to the nearest mall. At a costume shop, I buy the largest black ninja costume they have in stock and a supply of stage make-up. A shoe store provides all black tennies. A men's store provides a pair of black leather gloves. I pick up a small tool kit at an electronics store. A hardware store provides a mini-flashlight, some duct tape and some electrical tape. A kiosk provides some badly needed peanut butter fudge ice cream in a waffle cone. Man's gotta eat. I buy a cell phone, but confuse the clerk by not buying a cellular calling package. I tell him it's a gift to get him to back off. Finally, I pick up a first aid kit, sewing kit, black thread, some black broadcloth and some adhesive velcro patches at a craft shop. "That should do it," I tell myself on the way back to my room.  
  
I sew some straps onto the back of the ninja costume to hold one of the baseball bats I purchased earlier. They're too bulky to put both of them there. Some more straps fix the wooden rods into my sleeves. Some pockets and some velcro provide storage for the binoculars, flashlight, first aid kit and tool kit. I whip together a large pouch to hold the tape and rig a tie down around my leg to keep it from flopping about. I fold the rest of the broadcloth up and stuff it in the pouch. The catcher's mask I bought from the sporting goods store Thursday night won't fit under the ninja mask. Guess I'll have to leave it here.  
  
I put the whole thing on, and decide to redo the straps holding the baseball bat. It's too awkward like this. Plus the metal of the barrel shows up too much. The handle is all right, being covered in black padding, but the barrel could give me away. By the time I get this fixed to my liking, it's already ten. Now to build the phone tap.  
  
I crack open the cell phone's case and start pulling out parts. Battery, definitely going to need that. Memory chip, that'll help. I pull the backup modem and few other modules from my laptop and break out the toolkit.  
  
-----  
  
Two painstaking hours later, I'm done. What I wind up with is something that'll digitally record the first 30 seconds of any call made through a given phone line and record the number called. If the back door is used, the access codes should be among the earliest data transmitted. Get those, and I should have no problem getting into the Mishima network. Only problem is that it will only hold 10 calls and I'll can't download from a remote site. Of course, someone could find it too. Not really the way I want to do this, but if it works I could be out of here by Tuesday.  
  
I get dressed again, and carefully place the gizmo into my pouch. I chow down on a couple of energy bars for a quick snack and check my bathroom mirror to see where I need to apply black face-paint. After that, I wash my hands and slip on the leather gloves. Time to head out.  
  
END PART 5  
  
In Part 6: Night moves. 


	6. Night Moves

PART 6  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High. He's met most of the Ranma cast. While he no longer things Ranma is a meta-human like himself, he thinks Ryoga definitely is. He's seen Ranma transform and immediately figured out Ryoga is P-Chan. Ranma convinces Jeff not to blab to Akane. Jeff learns about Jusenkyo. The next day, he manages to avoid most of the insanity that is Nerima. After sparring with, and losing to, Ranma, Jeff also finds out about chi. He calls home and finds that a back door into the Mishima Heavy Industries network has been accessed and a partial trace on the source of the hack has been made. Time to do a little recon.  
  
-----  
  
I check the surrounding area before I slip out the window. Then I fly up a few hundred meters. Cruising altitude for me is about 40 meters, but I need the extra height to get above the glare from the city lights. Of all the things I can do with my telekinesis, flying is what I love the best. It is the first time I've really flown since I got to Japan, so I fool around a bit, twisting and turning, making sure nothing will fall off by accident. My makeshift costume holds up well under the testing. After a bit, I head north east until I hit the Nanbu Line, and follow that north to the Nerima district. Even at cruising speed it's _much_ faster than bicycling.  
  
The Mishima Heavy Industries building is lit up like a no fly zone. I find a convenient roof top and study the layout. Not that you can tell much. A fairly tall building with very little around it. Maybe I'll test their security after I plant this puppy. Just in case, I scout a couple of approach paths and a couple of escape routes as well. Note the location of the nearest train stations and subway entrances as back ups.  
  
The apartment building that Monster says the hack originated from takes a while to find. A fairly modest six story building with a small playground in the front and a park next door. Probably costs a bundle to live there. Of course, it costs a bundle to live _anywhere_ in Japan. I hit the roof and look for the main phone box.  
  
Finding it, I break out the spare broad cloth to cover my work. The flashlight allows me to see well enough so the tool kit and my TK can open the box. Now to figure out which circuit belongs to the hacker...  
  
As I'm trying to figure out what to do next, I hear something that sounds like an approaching helicopter. I turn off the flashlight and remove the broad cloth so I can look around. Approaching the building is that weird aerodyne I saw Wednesday on my way home from school. Mishima must have traced the hack too. Wait. If they traced the hack, what took them so long to get here? Moving to use the phone box for cover, I hear an amplified female voice.  
  
"Natsume Kyusaku, surrender Ryunosuke-kun at once or suffer Lady Akiko's wrath!" (Wait a sec, I know that name from somewhere...)  
  
After a moment, an unamplified male voice shouting at the top of his lungs can be heard. "You morons, Ryu's not here! He went to the anime marathon with Yoshimi-chan and Nuku Nuku!" (Natsume... Natsume... Natsume...)  
  
"Oh. Sorry," the amplified voice replies. (Son of a bitch! No wonder that name sounds familiar! Until a couple of years ago, he was Mishima Heavy Industries' top designer. He is (or was) married to the President of MHI too. It was in the material I dug up when I researched Mishima.)  
  
A different amplified voice kicks in. "You're still going to suffer!"  
  
I had already started to move to the edge of the roof so I could spot which balcony when I hear the new voice. So I clearly can see the two missiles fired from the aerodyne, straight toward the apartment building. My adrenal glands kick over with a near audible click and my TK strength increases by a factor of 8. I put the biggest, strongest repeller field I can make to cover the top floors of the building and hope it's enough. The missiles impact the field, but there is no explosion. Why, I can't guess. The repeller field knocks them away from the building and they fall harmlessly into the playground in front of the building.  
  
I'm not about to let them get off another shot. I leap off the roof and fly toward the aerodyne as fast as I can, getting a speed boost as I pass through the repeller field. I've never clocked my flying speed when I've boosted, but it isn't fast enough. A second flight of missiles have launched. I can do two TK tricks at once with no problem, provided one of them is flying or the repeller field. More than that gets tricky and unreliable. I can't afford unreliable right now, so I stop flying. As I start to fall, I reach out with my mind for one of the missiles and slam it into the other. A small explosion ensues, but nothing breaches the repeller field. I start flying again, pulling up before I hit the ground.  
  
The aerodyne has shifted position, turning towards me. Must have infrared or damn good eyesight. It's moving backwards as I fly toward it. If it weren't for the running lights, I'd never be able to keep it in sight. Before it can fire again, I manage to land on the canopy. The repeller field collapses as I've left it too far behind. Can't keep those things stable much beyond 60 meters.  
  
The running lights show the craft has two women in flight gear in it. Pilot and Navigator I'm guessing. Although flight helmets cover most of their faces, the Pilot has an evil grin while the Navigator's mouth hangs open.  
  
All of a sudden we are gaining altitude at a rapid pace. Fine by me. I unlimber the baseball bat and take a swing. Not even a scratch. Must be laminated polymer or even that "synthetic diamond" stuff. I use TK to back my next swing. The bat breaks, but at least I star the canopy. The climb stops suddenly and I manage to hang on. That's when they start running electricity though the airframe.  
  
The next thing I know, I'm in free fall, wind is whistling in my ears and my boosted power is gone. I spread my arms to slow myself and get my bearings and start flying straight up as fast as I can. By the time I cancel my downward momentum I'm only 30 meters off the ground. I can hear the aerodyne above me so I can't stay here. I can't risk them shooting at another building, but staying in the open could get me very very dead. I spot a river and a bridge over it. Time to go.  
  
I avoid two more missile attacks, but they're getting closer. None of the missiles have had warheads yet, but I still don't want to get hit by one. The explosion when I slammed two missiles together must have been their fuel supplies or something. I'm tiring now, the side effects of boosting are getting to me.  
  
Finally, I make it under the bridge. There isn't enough room for the aerodyne to flank me and as long as all they are using are dummy warheads, the bridge should protect me. Wrong. They start firing some type of machine gun at the bridge. What is it with these people? Nothing penetrating from the top, but the sides of the bridge are getting chewed up pretty bad. Then I get an idea.  
  
I use TK to gather up some chunks of concrete and a piece of railing. I pull off my t-shirt and wrap the stuff up in it. Then I fly across to the other side off the river where they won't see my next trick. I hope the bridge is blocking their sensors. The firing stops, but I can still hear the sounds of the engines. I pop up from the far side of the bridge and fly as fast as I can to the aerodyne. A couple of missiles are fired at me. I don't know how I manage to dodge them. As I cross over the top of the aerodyne, I see a look of triumph on the pilot's face. The ship starts to rise up to intercept me when I let go of my t-shirt and bank left at my best speed, something like 160-170 kph.  
  
Concrete and metal meet turbine which then goes boom. An instant later, the shockwave knocks me end over end. A flash of pain tells me I've caught a piece of shrapnel in my right side. Without the repeller field, it could have cut me in half. I'm already reaching for the first aid kit as I settle to the ground. No time for anything fancy, so I yank the shrapnel out, let it bleed for a few seconds and slap some gauze on it. A few strips of tape later and I'm ready to investigate the downed aerodyne.  
  
The blown turbine looks like it took the other one with it. Nothing burning that I can see. There is a mess of foam pouring out the back of the craft, and they'll probably need a haz-mat crew if any fuel reaches the river. Cautiously, I approach the canopy. No movement from either the Pilot or Navigator. I curse the fact the I left my flashlight on top of that apartment building. Valuable time is wasted finding out the canopy doesn't open. A quick check finds a door on the left hand side. Using an emergency crank, I winch the door open.  
  
Entering, I don't smell anything burning, which is a good sign. Small emergency lights give the cockpit an eerie glow. Where the hell are the cops? Somebody has to have reported this by now. First, I check pulse and respiration on both of them. The Navigator is fine, but the Pilot is having trouble breathing. Sounds ragged, but not bubbly. That's when the radio comes to life.  
  
"Kyouko, Arisa, please respond." Another woman's voice. With a touch of desperation in it. I trace down the Pilot's body the best I'm able without removing her harness. Arms and legs, o.k... Shoulders... Can't tell with the harness on. Ribs... At least two cracked or broken.  
  
"Kyouko, Arisa, anyone, please respond." Knowing that this is against my better judgment, I pick up the mike.  
  
"This is the downed airplane, to whom am I speaking." My accent, while getting better, still marks me as an American. Could make it easy to trace me, but I'm not leaving until help arrives. Even if these folks have shot at me.  
  
Must have been more obvious than I thought. She answers me in English. "This is Mishima Akiko, President of Mishima Heavy Industries." Then she asks, "Who are you and what are you doing aboard my plane?"  
  
Switching to English, "Who I am is not important. Your pilot has at least two cracked ribs and is having trouble breathing. If she punctures a lung, she'll die. I need two ambulances, a haz-mat team and a guarantee from you that I walk away from this."  
  
"You are in no position to bargain."  
  
"Neither are you lady." I begin to hear sirens in the distance. They sound different from home so I'm not sure if they are police or fire or what.  
  
"Very well."  
  
"First off, nothing is burning, but I think you may be leaking fuel into the river. Second, the navigator seems to be fine, she's just unconscious. Could be half a dozen things wrong though, that's why I want the second ambulance."  
  
"I see," the voice from the radio replies.  
  
"Third, keep any other aircraft you may be tempted to send away." Downing this one was hard enough. "Last, I have no intentions of dealing with the police. If you think it through, you might realize this is in your best interests too. So if you have any influence at all, keep them away from me." The sirens are getting closer. I'm sure she can hear them when I key the mike.  
  
"ohhh..." the Navigator moans from behind me.  
  
"Are you all right?" I ask over my shoulder.  
  
"I think... YOU!!!" She starts scrambling for her harness release. Before she can get out, I push her back into her seat.  
  
"Don't be stupid. Your friend is hurt."  
  
"What did you do to Arisa!?"  
  
My Japanese anatomy is sketchy at best, so I point to my ribs and say, "Arisa broke two..."  
  
"Abara bone?"  
  
"Yes. Maybe a bad lung." The only reason I know the word for 'lung' is because it is spelled the same as the word for 'yes'. Just accented differently. The siren comes to a stop and I can see flashing lights in the distance. "You stay and help Arisa. If she wakes up, don't let her move." When I let her get back up, she bolts for the radio mike. By the time she gets her first sentence out, I'm out the door and flying just above the surface of the river. I've got to get the stuff off the apartment roof.  
  
At least I'm morally certain that the hack came from Natsume Kyusaku. Finding out which apartment is his should be a snap. Heck, I'm tempted to ask him for his help directly. He can't be too thrilled about having missiles fired at him. I just might not be able to do it tonight. Gotta get the stuff I left behind and get out. Gotta do something about this wound too. Am I tired because of the side effects of the power boost, or am I tired because of the blood loss?  
  
The police are out in force in front of the apartment building. Everything is roped off and people are milling around everywhere. I just take on a little more altitude, circle around and land on the roof from the back side. Once I'm down, I stagger over to the phone box and do my best to eliminate any signs that I'd been here. After everything is closed up, I lay the broadcloth down as a tarp and look under the gauze that I'm using as a patch. Looks like that piece of whatever it was sliced skin, but not muscle. Lucky lucky lucky, that's me. It's still bleeding a bit when I change bandages. I'm gonna look a mess when I get home.  
  
I rest for bit, trying to catch my breath. The adrenaline haze my body produced is wearing off and this wound is starting to hurt. I dry swallow a bunch of aspirin and wish they were codeine. The pain is making it hard to concentrate and I'm low on power anyway. I don't think I can fly back to my room. Can't stay here either. Left my wallet in my room, so I can't check into a hotel. I don't know if Natsume saw me come off the roof or not, but I have to assume he did. If he did, he might mention it to the cops, or come up himself. That's why I came to clean things up in the first place.  
  
Finally, my brain comes up with a viable option. I'm close enough to Furinkan High School to make it there in one piece. I'm sure I can open a window or something and then crash out in the nurse's office after I sew this thing up.  
  
On the way there, I fly high over the crash site. It's been half an hour since I left and I'm curious as to what's happened. I see one ambulance, a couple of fire trucks, half a dozen police cars, three news trucks, a whole slew of Japan Defense Force trucks and some others. Hope they throw the book at Mishima. Lots of people at the wreck itself, but I can't tell who they are from up here. Memo to self, listen to the news if I can for the next few days.  
  
I reach the school and enter by unlocking a third story window with the dregs of my TK. I hope they don't have a custodian in here right now. Down two flights of stairs and a couple corridors later, I reach the nurse's office. Lots of bandages are available, but I have to pick a lock with a paper clip to get a suture kit. I peel off the blood soaked gauze and clean the wound with iodine and peroxide. The worst of the bleeding has stopped, but the peroxide burns like hell.  
  
This isn't the first time I've sewn myself up, but it's never a pleasant experience. Eleven stitches. A doctor would have probably used more, but this ought to do it for me. It'll heal up in few days, and I won't even have a scar in a month. I re-bandage the wound and realize that I've done every thing I can do right now. I head to the gym, specifically the coach's office. After propping a chair against to door to block it, I crash out on the couch.  
  
------  
  
I awake with a start. It takes me a moment to remember where I am and how I got here. The chair I propped against the door is undisturbed. The pain in my side is down to a dull roar, and I could eat a horse. I unblock the door and do a little careful looking around. No signs of a janitor, so I take a shower and put on another new bandage. Very little blood on the old one, which is a good sign.  
  
I realize I left a mess in the nurse's office and go clean it up. Must not have been thinking too clearly last night. Glancing at a clock, I see that it's 2 in the afternoon. Must have slept for 9 or 10 hours. I'll send a money order for the cost of the supplies I used later. Right now I have to figure out how to get back to my rented room while dressed like a ninja.  
  
Going back to the coach's office, I search until I find what I'm looking for. Soccer uniforms. I put on the largest shirt I can find. I tie the top of my ninja costume and the hood into a bundle with the rest of the stuff I brought with me. Before leaving, I go over every place I've been in the school and make sure I've left no avoidable signs of my visit. Can't do much about the missing bandages and the suture kit though. I can bring the shirt back with me tomorrow.  
  
I go out the way I came in and lightly land on the ground. A quick trip to the dumpster takes care of the bloody bandages. A leap over the fence surrounding the school, and I'm ready to head back to my room.  
  
-----  
  
I don't recommend making a 25 kilometer trip by foot under most circumstances. Doing so with eleven fresh stitches in your side when you haven't eaten anything in fourteen hours is even worse. I actually think about stopping at Ucchan's for some food, but decide against it for two reasons. One, I don't have any cash on me. Two, I'm sure she'd notice what I was wearing and ask questions I don't feel like answering.  
  
As it is, I do get some odd looks as I go home. Especially when my stomach growls loud enough to be heard 5 meters away. There are enough water fountains in parks that I don't get thirsty and can take a few aspirin when I want to, but by the time I get 'home', I am in a raging hunger.  
  
Three cans of tuna fish, two liters of milk, half a dozen energy bars and four packages of instant ramen take the edge off my appetite. I always eat more when I'm healing up after an injury. By now, it's 8:00 PM and I'm still hungry. I'm tempted to call for take out, but decide against it. Fortunately, there are McDonald's in Japan. I blow 3000 yen over the course of the next two hours, but at least I'm not hungry any more.  
  
I stroll back home, turn on the TV and check the latest data from Monster. The back door was used last night, right after the incident with the aerodyne. This time, Monster was able to trace the signal to Natsume Kyusaku's apartment. Unfortunately, the encryption keys seem to have changed. Back not quite to square one, but close enough on that front. I have Monster check a couple of internet Japanese news sites and translate what he finds to English.  
  
Cover up all the way. The crashed aerodyne is too big to ignore, so they change every other detail they can. According the MHI press release, the aerodyne was stolen by terrorists. The attack against the apartment building is listed as an attack against Natsume Kyusaku, "former employee of MHI". Well they got that part right. Pilot and Navigator are listed as two MHI employees who were conducting systems checks at the time of the incident. Yeah, right. Crash was due to valiant efforts of said employees to stop the terrorists, who got away after the crash. No mention of a flying man. MHI to cover all costs involved in cleaning up the mess. Valiant statement about not giving into the threat of terrorism. The spin doctors here are just as good as the ones in DC.  
  
I stay up until the nightly news comes on. Maybe they have a different perspective. Indeed they do. It's the lead story. They aren't buying MHI's line about a terrorist attack. Why? Because of some interviews with other residents of the apartment building. Even worse, there is a video clip that clearly silhouettes me against the background of the aerodyne. Fortunately, it's only a few seconds long, there's nothing to give a sense of scale and I'm in black from head to toe. Seems I've forgotten the Japanese fascination with photography and video cameras. A brief panel discussion brings up the possibility of aliens returning to Japan, youma attacks and ESPer's running loose in the city. Well, the last one is true after a fashion.  
  
As interesting as it is, it's not enough to prevent me from falling asleep with the TV still on.  
  
-----  
  
I awake to the sound of a children's program theme song blaring from the TV. Turning it off, I do my 100 push ups, perhaps a little slower than usual. There is a bit of tightness where the stitches are, but no sign of infection. I'm not up to riding to school, so I shower, grab my stuff and head straight for the nearest train station. It'll be the same route I used last Monday before I bought the bicycle. I catch a lucky break when I transfer, so I get to the Nerima district in time to stop at Ucchan's for breakfast.  
  
Ukyo smiles when I walk in and greets me with "Irasshaimase, what can I get for you Jeff?"  
  
"Double beef okonomiyaki please," I request. It arrives in short order, and as I'm finishing it, Ukyo orders everyone out so she can get ready for school. Not having my bike and not wanting to run, I simply walk alone to the school. I see Nabiki talking to one of her cronies as I arrive on the school grounds. She either doesn't see me, or chooses to ignore me as she heads into the school proper.  
  
I replace the Soccer uniform I had borrowed and head upstairs. I wonder who will collect the 2000 yen I put up for grabs. If I were to bet, I'd bet on Nabiki. Girl knows numbers. That's if she felt like putting any effort into it. Serizawa-sensei gives me five minutes at the start of the day to collect the entries. Of the 24 students in the class, 16 turn in something, 7 do not and Kuno hasn't shown up yet.  
  
I glance through the papers and inform the class. "Provisionally, the winner of the 2000 yen is Matsuda Kosaka. If the answers check out, the money will be yours this afternoon." The announcement puts a ripple through the classroom. Several people look at Nabiki as if they expected her to win. Gotta admit I did too, but Nabiki stopped at 156 while Kosaka took it to 162. A few of his friends slap Kosaka on the back, and he looks both embarrassed and triumphant.  
  
My five minutes are up and Serizawa-sensei begins class for the day. Kuno shows up with a few lumps on his head about 15 minutes into class. He gives me a solid glare but doesn't do anything stupid. Well, stupider than usual.  
  
While Serizawa-sensei drones on, I look at the papers I received. Most of them got stuck at 72 or less, some at 112, and only Nabiki and Kosaka got past that. It takes a couple of minutes to verify all his answers, but they check out making him the winner. Just for the heck of it, I go through the rest of the entries looking for errors. I don't find many though.   
  
Lunch rolls around and Serizawa-sensei calls me to his desk after all the students leave.  
  
"What do you think of the results of your 'learn and win' experiment?" he asks me.  
  
"Disappointing. I expected more of the students to participate," I tell him. True too, as some of the people who did not participate are some of the better math students. "From the reactions I saw, most of the students thought Tendo Nabiki would win easily."  
  
"Matsuda-kun is an excellent student, I am not surprised by the results. However, I agree that many students would believe Tendo-chan would win. Some of those students believed it to the point where they did not even compete."  
  
"Amazing what a reputation will let you get away with," I say.  
  
"Do you see why I did not approve of this experiment?"  
  
"To an extent Serizawa-sensei."  
  
He frowns at me before speaking. "My goal is to prepare these students for what may lie ahead. Bribing them to work is not a situation they should be expecting once they leave here."  
  
"Everyone gets bribed to work. They call it a pay check."  
  
"Do not interrupt. While you have been handling the classes you teach well enough, you are far too involved with the student body. Your familiarity with them is disruptive to say the least." I wait for a few seconds before speaking.  
  
"Serizawa-sensei, I have some things to say. First, the four fours problem isn't about mathematics, it's about lateral thinking and problem solving. I believe you have confused the medicine with the spoon." Before he can answer, I continue, "Second, what I do on my own time is my own business. Third, Tendo Nabiki instigated Kuno-san's challenge of me to a duel. Kuno attacked me twice after I disarmed him. With what some might call deadly intent. I could care less who his father is or how rich his family is. He tries anything again and I won't hold back."  
  
He doesn't say anything for a bit, so I ask to be excused. He waves me off with a perturbed expression on his face. As I head down to the cafeteria, I figure out why Ranma eats outside whenever possible. It saves wear and tear on the building. Actually, the hole in the stairwell helps me figure it out.  
  
Looking through said hole, I see male Ranma being hugged by Shampoo, Akane fuming nearby, Kuno ranting with bokken in hand and Ukyo keeping herself between Ranma and Kuno, giant spatula at the ready. Sigh. I duck onto the second floor and grab a water bucket from a surprised student before going through the hole to the outdoors.  
  
Kuno is still ranting, but is closer to Ranma and Shampoo, Ukyo looks nervous, but ready to start swinging, Akane is nowhere to be seen and Ranma has a clearly visible hand print on his left cheek. Shampoo is still holding on tightly to Ranma. It looks like she's saying something to him, but I can't tell what from here. Ranma sees me jump from the hole with bucket in hand and his eyes go wide. As I land, the water sloshes around a bit.  
  
Shampoo hears this and jerks in shock. She lets go of Ranma and dodges the water that I slosh at her. Ranma dodges in the opposite direction. Well, at least they're separated. Kuno notices my arrival and stops in mid-rant. Ukyo looks somewhat relieved at this. I've never seen her fight, so I don't know if she could take Kuno or not. Doubtful if Kuno goes all out.  
  
Shampoo pops up in front of me in a martial arts stance. "Who is you?" she asks me.  
  
"I am student teacher Jeffery Anderson. You must be Shampoo."  
  
"How foreign man know Shampoo name?"  
  
"Your fame precedes you," I answer. Shampoo looks confused. I get a lock on her with my TK. While I'm busy here, Ranma is making quick work of Kuno and Ukyo switches her attention to me and Shampoo.  
  
"You interfere with Shampoo and airen. Obstacles is for killing!"  
  
"Whatever." The rest of the water from the bucket flies straight and true. She tries to dodge out of the way but can't. A look of shock appears on her face just as the water hits her, transforming her into a cat. I lose my TK grip when she shifts forms. A few seconds later, a small white cat with purple trim pokes her head out of a pile of clothing.  
  
Ukyo shouts, "Get Shampoo out of here! Ranma's deathly afraid of cats!"  
  
Upon hearing the word "cats" Ranma turns around to see Shampoo racing towards him. He screams in terror, turns again and runs. Straight through Kuno, knocking Kuno out. It's almost funny to watch, Ranma running for his life from a small cat. I run after them, still carrying the bucket. A little TK stops Shampoo in her tracks. Well, her feet keep moving, but she's not getting anywhere. With her mass reduced this low, she's easy to handle. Ranma keeps right on going, smashing into the wall surrounding the school. I flip the bucket upside down and slam it over Shampoo. This breaks my TK hold on her, but I doubt she's strong enough to knock me off the bucket.  
  
Ukyo comes running up carrying Shampoo's clothes. I give serious thought to keeping a loaded squirt gun on my person at all times. I should get one for Ranma too. And Ukyo.  
  
"I can heat some water on my portable grill to change her back," Ukyo says.  
  
"I'm not sure I want to change her back. She'd probably just attack again." From the way the bucket is shaking, I'd damn near guarantee it.  
  
"Uh... right... I'm going to check on Ran-chan." She leaves the pile of clothes.  
  
I rap the top of the bucket a few times to get Shampoo's attention. Should sound like being in the middle of boom box in there. At least the bucket stops shaking. "Are you going to settle down, or do I ship you someplace without running water?" A loud meow is the only response I get. Maybe I should ship her to Robert the Talking Cat. He's always wanted another sentient cat to play with. Nah. Too much like kidnapping.  
  
Ukyo gets Ranma back to his feet and they both come over to me.  
  
"Any suggestions?" I ask. Both of them visibly bite their tongues.  
  
Eventually Ranma says, "Take her back ta the old ghoul at the Nekohanten." Ukyo nods agreement.  
  
"I don't know how to get there." The warning bell rings. "Besides, we are all due back in class in five minutes."  
  
"Ooh. Sensei, wait right here," Ukyo says before running off around the corner of the building.  
  
"What was that about?" I ask Ranma.  
  
"Dunno."  
  
"You get back to class, I can wait a little longer."  
  
"Sure thing sensei." Soon after Ranma heads in, Ukyo comes back with a small cage.  
  
"Where did you... Nevermind, I don't want to know." Ukyo just gives me a small smile and heads for the front door. No one else is around so this should be safe to try now. I put a repeller field facing inwards in a dome about me, the cage and the bucket before I flip over the bucket. As expected, Shampoo takes off running as soon as she's able. She bounds right into the repeller field which knocks her back a bit. A quick snatch on my part gets her into the cage with only a couple claw marks on my hands to show for it.  
  
I drop the field, grab the loose clothes and head, cage in hand, for the front doors. "I'll take you home after classes. In the mean time, please remain quiet." I don't have time to do anything else with her, so I take her with me back to class. Most of the students' eyes go wide when we enter. I place the cage on top of my desk.  
  
Serizawa-sensei asks the most rhetorical and useless question in all history. "What is the meaning of this?"  
  
"I think someone on staff should have told me about Jusenkyo curses when I started here. As you can see, I've found out the hard way."  
  
"Oh. Very well." Serizawa-sensei replies guardedly before starting the afternoon session.  
  
When math rolls around, I hand Matsuda Kosaka his winnings. Shampoo pays attention during the math class, and is being a model prisoner overall, but I'm not about to let her out of the cage. After classes, I ask the students how to get to the Nekohanten. Nabiki offers to sell me the information, but I get directions from another student. Just to piss off Nabiki, I'm tempted to pay him, but decide it isn't worth it.  
  
-----  
  
The sign above the door translates roughly as "Cat Cafe". It's not too far from Ucchan's. I enter, carrying Shampoo-cat in a cage in one hand, and Shampoo's clothes in the other. A young Chinese man wearing thick glasses on top of his head greets me. Mousse, if I remember right from Ranma's description and from what happened Saturday.  
  
"Welcome to the Nekohanten. How may I help you?" As far as I can tell, he actually directed that to the door frame, but close enough.  
  
"Is this yours?" I ask holding up the cage.  
  
Mousse peers at the cage and says, "No, we haven't lost a ferret." Shampoo drops her little cat jaw.  
  
A bowl bounces off the back of his head, knocking his glasses to where they belong.  
  
"Shampoo!" I let him grab the cage and toss the clothes on top of it. As he rushes off to the back of the restaurant, I'm confronted with an odd sight. A very short woman balancing on a staff that is taller than she is. This HAS to be Cologne. Ranma wasn't kidding when he said she was old, and I can even see why her calls her "ghoul". _Scary_ looking old woman.  
  
"Thank you for returning my great-granddaughter," Cologne says in a voice much more pleasant than her appearance. Before anything else can be said, a scream of rage is heard from the back and Shampoo, human again, is charging me with two maces that have large spherical heads. Wish she'd have put her clothes on first though.  
  
The distraction proves almost fatal, as I dodge her swing at my head by millimeters. I'm sure the male patrons are enjoying the view, but I've got other things to worry about. I dash through the still open door and hope she won't come outside. I'm backing away and she hasn't come outside yet... Wait, here she comes. At least she's dressed now. With the number of potential witness, I don't want to use my TK if I can avoid it. I shouldn't have used it on her at school, but it's too late to worry about that now.  
  
I lead a merry chase, heading toward the canal that runs through the Nerima district. I try not to let her get within striking range, but it isn't easy. The stitches in my side are slowing me down a step, and Shampoo is pretty quick. Cologne is following behind, I've caught a couple of glimpses of her. No sign of Mousse though.  
  
Finally, I get her where I want her. She is aware of where I've led her and gets cautious. So I goad her a bit. "Come and get me," I say while motioning her toward me. I also leap up onto the concrete retaining wall, making it certain that if she charges me from where she is and misses, she's going in the drink. I reach for a lock with my TK, but don't get one by the time she makes her move.   
  
She throws one of the maces and while I'm busy ducking, charges me. It's a good try, but I'm fast enough to jump over her strike and counter with a kick. She takes it and lands a blow to my stomach with the remaining mace. It hurts, but I've taken a lot worse. At least she doesn't burst the stitches. I recover before she can follow up and raise my repeller field to protect me from future strikes. We trade another set of blows, but the repeller field makes her impact negligible. Shampoo connects again, but still with no real effect. That's when I notice her starting to glow.  
  
Shampoo's entire body and her remaining mace are surrounded with a blue aura. This is the first battle aura I've seen since Ranma described the phenomenon to me. If the rest of what he said is true, Shampoo just got much more dangerous. Her next swing connects, knocking me over the retaining wall and off the bridge. Without my repeller field, I might not have survived it. Still hurts.  
  
I don't hit the water, because I start using my TK to fly. A nasty idea comes to mind. Aw, the heck with it. I drop the repeller field around me and place a new one 10 centimeters under the water then crank it up to full blast. Shampoo looks over the retaining wall just in time to catch her part of 150 liters of water in the face. I drop the field before any more water can flow in.  
  
I climb out of the canal on the far side of the bridge and take a look at the damage. Nothing too severe, just some broken concrete. At least it's not a 2 meter hole in a stairwell. Cologne uses her staff like a pogo stick and bounces over to where Shampoo is shaking out her fur. Cologne glances at Shampoo and then gives me a look I find very uncomfortable.  
  
"Very impressive, young man. You do not fight as well as son-in-law, but it seems you have other abilities," she says in a serious tone. Son-in-law? Oh yeah, according to the customs of her tribe, Shampoo considers Ranma her husband. I thought it was a very stupid custom when Ranma mentioned it while we had dinner at Ucchan's last week.  
  
I walk toward the pair and ask, "Is Shampoo all right? I didn't want to hurt her." A half-truth. I was ready to keep fighting, but she was too dangerous an opponent with those maces. If I hadn't used TK, she could have beat me. Lots of powerful martial artists here in Nerima.  
  
"Perhaps I should have Shampoo marry you instead." I see an intrigued look on her face. Whatever Cologne is thinking, it can't be good for me.  
  
I stop walking before I say, "I'm already married." What is it about arranged marriages in this town? Ranma, Ukyo, Akane, Shampoo, who knows who else.  
  
Cologne looks a bit crestfallen at my response. "I can see you speak the truth. Pity. Such blood would be welcome in our tribe."  
  
While there are many things I might say about that, starting with "Not bloody likely", I keep my mouth shut by sheer force of will. I know some people who might enjoy this marriage by combat thing, but I doubt they would make good Amazons. If what Ranma told me is true anyway. Heck, even if it's only half true.  
  
"Tell me, why did my great-granddaughter attack you?" Cologne asks.  
  
"I'm not really sure. I separated her from Ranma and..."  
  
"Heh heh heh. That explains much young man," she interrupts.  
  
I notice Shampoo glaring at me. At some point she and Cologne are going to talk about what happened today and soon after that, I'm going to be in a world of trouble. And from what Ranma said, Cologne is _serious_ trouble.  
  
When in doubt, change the subject. "If Shampoo has to visit Ranma at school, is there any reason she can't use doors?"  
  
"When an Amazon maiden is tracking down a reluctant spouse, obstacles are of no consequence." Cologne says this as if it were the most logical thing in the world. It scares me to think that she might actually believe that statement.  
  
I try again, "She can't go around the obstacles instead of through the obstacles?" With the Amazon logic I've been exposed to so far, I expect one of two answers.  
  
"Shampoo prefers the direct approach. Also, the most direct route _is_ a straight line."   
  
And she hits them both. As far as I can tell, Cologne and Shampoo are religious fanatics and being an Amazon is their religion. As fanatics, there is no logical way to deal with them. They are intrinsically incapable of doubt or admitting error. To do either would force them to completely reexamine their belief system. From prior experience, I also know it's something no fanatic voluntarily does. But it isn't my place to get these two to deal with reality.  
  
"And Ranma gets no say in this... situation?" I ask, trying for some verification of my theories.  
  
Cologne responds in a haughty tone, "Of course not. Son-in-law, while a fine warrior, is merely a man. He cannot stand against 3000 years of Amazon tradition." Left unsaid is "And neither can you."  
  
Give Ranma a couple years and I bet he throws Amazon tradition on it's ear. I desperately need a way to end this conversation. I'm tired and Amazon logic is giving me a headache.  
  
Cologne looks at me like a side of beef for a moment, smiles (if you can call it that), and then says, "Come along Shampoo, you have work to do." She gathers up Shampoo's clothes and gives me a small nod before turning to go.  
  
I watch the two of them leave, Cologne bouncing on her walking stick, Shampoo walking quietly behind. After they are out of sight, I grab the two maces that they left behind. Things must weigh 12 kilos each. Well, any weapons they don't have are ones they can't use against me, so I toss them in the first dumpster I find.  
  
As I walk to the train station, I think about my conversation with Cologne. Ranma is a good kid. Well... young man. (Who am I to talk? I was his age when I got into the hero biz.) From what I've seen, what he needs most is to be left alone. By everyone. He needs space, but I think he may be too nice to actually try and get it.  
  
The poor kid is everyone's doormat. Akane clobbers him for things he does and doesn't do. Ryoga attacks him for reasons that seem mostly imaginary, or for things that are his own fault. Nabiki treats him as a income source, but to be fair, she treats everyone as an income source. His father and Tendo-san think he'll support them in their old ages. Cologne, Shampoo, Kodachi and even Ukyo to an extent treat him as a prize to be won. Kuno treats his girl side the same way. I don't think Kasumi has any ulterior motives, but then I haven't dealt with her enough to tell.  
  
Boarding the train, my mind continues to wander. Memo to self, purchase three squirt guns. I'm betting Shampoo shows sometime tomorrow. I give it a 50-50 chance that she'll be after me as well as Ranma. Also, I have to tell Ukyo what I did with the cage so she can get it back from the Nekohanten. If it's still in one piece.  
  
-----  
  
I get back to my room with no further incidents. I check Monster and find although the backdoor is still sealed with that new encryption pattern, a window past the firewall and into the accounting department has been found. Although I can't transfer funds, I can look around a bit.  
  
I'm no accountant, but it looks as if the submarine was refurbished for an external client. There are records of payments for the work, but when I try to follow the money trail, I hit a security wall. No real details on exactly what was done, but a cross reference with some purchase orders gives some information on that. Hmm. Nasty markup these guys charge. There are also records of payment for half a dozen power suits made three months prior to Fastball's death, but the source of the payments is not listed, just the fact that payment was made. Following that trail leads to another security wall. I try to get into the Accounts Receivable ledger, but that too requires a password that I don't have. Odd, we only fought five suits. What happened to the sixth one? Could it have been on the sub?  
  
I rummage around the parts of the system I do have access to, looking for passwords to other parts of the system. Security is pretty tight. I find some personal files, but they are mostly porn, game files and e-mail.  
  
I stretch and notice that five hours have passed since I sat down. I set up a program for Monster to run. He'll leach all the files he can and scan them for key words that might be helpful, like Power Suit or weapon or password. I also double check the usual anti-backtrace programs on both Monster and the portable before I crash out.  
  
END PART 6  
  
In Part 7: Revelations. 


	7. Revelations

PART 7  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High. He's met the Ranma cast and learned about Jusenkyo. While he no longer things Ranma is a meta-human like himself, he thinks Ryoga is. He's figured out Ryoga is P-Chan too. A partial trace on a back door into the Mishima Heavy Industries computer system lead Jeff to the top of Natsume Kyusaku's apartment building. Unfortunately, Arisa and Kyouko came by to take Ryunosuke to his mother. One fight later, the aircraft was downed and Jeff injured. He's feeling better now, and is starting to get some of the information he needs to complete his mission.  
  
-----  
  
My alarm goes off, I roll out of bed and do my 100 push ups before checking on Monster's progress. On the backdoor front, nothing worth mentioning, estimated time to crack the new encryption, 3 weeks. On the Accounting front, no passwords themselves, but a memo indicating proper password formats that might make a brute force attempt a little easier. I reconfigure the search program to look for "words" that fit the password format. Also, a memo from yesterday, indicating that all costs in the clean up of the "terrorist attack" should be billed to Mishima Akiko's personal account.  
  
I check my stitches and then remove same. The new skin between the edges of the wound is a bit lighter than my normal skin tone. If it is like prior injuries, I won't be able to find any trace of the wound in a month or so. Lucky for me, I don't heal, I regenerate.  
  
I go outside to do some stretches and then, feeling up to it, grab my stuff, hop on my bike and start pedaling. First stop, Natsume Kyusaku's apartment. The missiles that landed in the playground in front of the building are gone, but the police lines are still in place. No visible cops though. I ride east to the crash site. Although the damage done by the crashing aerodyne is visible, the plane itself is long gone. There is one news truck doing a remote shoot, but they are too far away for me to hear anything.  
  
Pushing myself a bit, I get to Ucchan's in time for breakfast.  
  
"Irasshaimase! Double beef, right Jeff?" the smiling proprietor asks me.  
  
"Yes, thank you."  
  
After she pours batter on the grill, Ukyo asks, "So what happened with Shampoo?"  
  
"I took her to the Nekohanten, she changed back to human and then attacked me with two maces."  
  
"Maces? Oh, her bonbori."  
  
"Is that what you call them?"  
  
"Hai. Then what happened?"  
  
"I got her to chase me for a bit and then I got her wet again. Her great-grandmother took her home after that."  
  
Ukyo serves my food while laughing. "Wish I could have seen it."  
  
Conversation is suspended while I stuff my face. I'm starting to eat like Ranma. I don't know whether it's because the food is so good or whether I want to get it all eaten before the next piece of weirdness happens. Might explain why Ranma and Genma eat the way they do.  
  
After breakfast, I leave Ucchan's and bicycle to the school. Damn, got so tied up with the results from Monster that I forgot to buy the squirt guns. Some genius I am. Oh well, too late to worry about it now.  
  
When I get to the school, I see the repairs on the stairwell are underway. I look around for any sources of trouble. Seeing none at the moment, I head in for my shower.  
  
The day goes quietly. Kuno is absent the entire day, which suits me just fine. Nabiki is ignoring me as much as possible. Even lunch is quiet. A brief rain shower leaves the ground damp and the air clean. So far, it's been one of the quieter days since I came to Nerima. I just know that I'll end up paying for that later, but for the moment, I'll enjoy it.  
  
After school, I head to the Tendo Dojo to perform my strength maintenance routine. Kasumi lets me in and I ask to see her father. He is playing go with Genma this trip. Guess shogi gets boring after a while.  
  
"Pardon me Tendo-san. The last time I was here I broke one of the staves you had left for me. How much do I owe for a replacement?"  
  
At the mention of money, Genma glances up at me and this time Soun takes a brief second to rearrange some pieces on the game board. Well, I guess as long as they both cheat, it's still a fair game.  
  
"Don't worry about it Anderson-san. A little breakage is considered part of normal wear and tear." As he turns to face me, Genma rearranges a few stones on the board.  
  
"I insist Tendo-san."  
  
"Well then, 3000 yen should cover it."  
  
Fair enough. I pull out the money from my wallet and from seemingly nowhere, Nabiki pops up and takes it before I can hand it to her father.  
  
"I'll take that," she says. "Really father, you know you shouldn't handle money." Behind Nabiki, I see Kasumi move up to us all as quiet as a ghost. With a quick movement, she takes the money from Nabiki.  
  
"Ah, grocery money. Thank you," Kasumi says in her beautiful voice before heading to the kitchen as quietly as she came. I note a look of frustration on Nabiki's face and manage not to laugh. Excusing myself, I head to the dojo.   
  
My regular workout goes quietly and I'm near the end of my strength maintenance routine when it happens. I hear Akane shout "Ranma no baka!" This is followed by Ranma crashing through the wall of the dojo in a shower of splinters. I reverse the polarity of my repeller field to avoid becoming a pin cushion and drop to the floor in the middle of the dojo.  
  
No doubt about it. He saw me floating there. He saw the splinters shear away when they got close. I'm busted.  
  
"Some trick," he mumbles before passing out.  
  
My "professional" instincts kick in and I dash to a point where I can see out the hole while I begin to check on Ranma. I see Akane trying to get her breathing under control. I'm not sure, but there may be a trace of a battle aura around her. If she sees me, she takes no notice. She does not appear to be an immediate threat so I focus on the matter at hand.  
  
Nothing broken on Ranma, although he's going to have a couple of lumps and some bruises. How did she hit him? Ranma avoids most of what _I_ can throw at him. He dodges Kuno's bokken with ease. Akane just isn't that fast. From the looks of things, she hit him from the front, so he probably saw it coming. Why didn't he dodge? Or block?  
  
Ranma regains consciousness. Before I can stop him, he bounces to his feet and shakes his head.  
  
"You all right?" I ask.  
  
Ranma bends and stretches for a few seconds before saying, "Yeah, I'm fine."  
  
"About that trick..."  
  
Ranma interrupts me. "Not here, Nabiki has the place wired," he says quietly.  
  
"What?!?"  
  
Ranma places his fingers to his lips and jumps up into the rafters. I take a quick look through the hole in the wall and, seeing no one, jump/fly up there with him. He points at a small black microphone. I think back over all the time I've spent in the dojo. I don't make much noise during a workout, and although I talk to myself frequently, I don't tend to do so out loud much. I don't recall saying anything that would give me away while here.  
  
I drop back to the floor and Ranma leaps down beside me. There is a noise as the training dummies I set up to block the entrance to the dojo are knocked over when Genma and Soun enter. I'm not sure if those are looks of concern on their faces or not. At this point I really don't care.  
  
I bow formally to Soun before speaking. "Tendo-san. It is with regret that I must inform you that I will no longer be using your Dojo."  
  
"Eh? What is wrong Anderson-san?"  
  
"When I came here, it was with the expectation of having privacy. This has not been the case." Maybe I'm being hypocritical. After all, MATRIX HQ is heavily wired for sight and sound.  
  
"I'm sure Ranma didn't mean any harm," Soun says placatingly.  
  
"I was referring to Nabiki's microphone." At least it wasn't a hidden camera. Given Nabiki's "Anything for a Buck" nature, that could have been fatal.  
  
"What microphone?"  
  
So as not to give away too much, I run to the corner of the dojo. Using a move cribbed from "Rumble in the Bronx", I bounce upward, repeatedly springing off both walls. I reach the rafters and quickly make my way over to the microphone. At the top of my lungs I shout "THIS ONE!!!" into it. I'm sure Nabiki has overload protection, but it feels good to shout anyway. I grab the bug then do a dangle and drop back to the floor.  
  
I present the device to Soun. While he's looking at it (and Genma looks over his shoulder), I ask Ranma in a quiet voice, "Want that explanation?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Think of someplace we can talk about this." I gather my stuff, bow again to Tendo-san, and leave the dojo. As we go through the house, I notice Nabiki standing in the living room. She's rubbing her head behind her right ear, but looks eager to talk. "Ranma, give me a minute here."  
  
Ranma glances at Nabiki before speaking. "Sure thing Jeff," he says as he heads to the kitchen. This leaves the two of us more or less alone.  
  
Nabiki speaks first. "What I do, is done for my family."  
  
"You expect me to believe that?"  
  
"It doesn't matter if you believe me or not," she replies flatly.  
  
She's right on that one. "Doesn't mean I like being spied upon." There follows an uncomfortable silence.  
  
Ranma sticks his head back into the room. "Ready ta go?" he asks.  
  
"Don't ask for a refund," Nabiki says in a dry voice.  
  
"Never even crossed my mind Tendo-san," I say as I leave with Ranma.  
  
Ranma and I walk for a bit, me walking my bike, Ranma walking on any fences that happen to be about. We're heading roughly in the direction of Ucchan's. An encounter with a crosswalk, a puddle and a passing car leaves both of us wet and Ranma female.  
  
"Sure you want to go to Ucchan's to talk about this?"  
  
"Why not? She'll have hot water so I can change back at least."  
  
"Two reasons: First, as much as I like Ukyo, I'd rather keep the number of people who know about me to a minimum. Second, between my workout and that puddle, I need a shower before I do anything."  
  
Ranma laughs and tells me, "I'm sure Ukyo will let you use her shower."  
  
We're over half way there when I hear a familiar voice. "Pig-tailed girl! What are thou doing with that foul sorcerer? Worry not, the 'Blue Thunder' shall save thee."   
  
Oh god, it's Kuno. At least he's smart enough not to have his bokken out. I'm not really in the mood to castrate him. Not that I have to worry about it. Kuno rushes to sweep up Ranma in his arms, Ranma takes one step forward and kicks Kuno into the nearest lamppost.  
  
"What dark magics did that filthy fiend use to turn thy heart against me so?" Kuno cries out.  
  
As much as I don't like him as a person, I do have to admire Kuno's stamina and tenacity. There is a noticeable dent in the lamppost and he's still standing. At least until he rushes in again and Ranma pummels him into unconsciousness while shouting various words you won't find in a Japanese/English dictionary.  
  
Observing Ranma, I notice he does seem faster as a girl. I doubt he was going all out either. We prop Kuno up on a bench at a bus stop before heading on.  
  
We get to Ucchan's and Ukyo is kind enough to let me use her shower as well as providing a kettle of hot water for Ranma. What he sees in Akane that he can't see in Ukyo, I don't know. But the heart makes it's own rules. Took me long enough, but I eventually figured that one out. When I get back downstairs, Ranma is busy pigging out on okonomiyaki while Ukyo is busy cooking up more for her customers.  
  
Noticing my arrival, Ukyo asks, "Ran-chan said you two needed a private place to talk?"  
  
"It's pretty important, it's personal... and Nabiki has the dojo bugged."  
  
Ukyo snorts in a rather unladylike fashion. "Doesn't surprise me. Tell you what, if Ran-chan helps with the dinner rush, you can use my spare room after."  
  
"That all right with you Ranma?" I ask.  
  
Ranma grunts an affirmative between bites. He calls home to let them know he'll be late and why. I buy my own food before the big rush arrives.  
  
The dinner rush comes. Ranma helps out behind the grill and handles the register. Occasionally, Ukyo asks me to bring up supplies from the back. At one point, I help unload noodles from a truck. It amazes me that Ukyo normally does all this herself. The dinner rush goes.  
  
"Thanks a lot guys. I can handle it from here," Ukyo says after things slow down.  
  
Ranma and I head up stairs to the spare room Ukyo mentioned. The only furnishings are a small nightstand with a lamp on it, so we sit on the floor. Ranma seems a little subdued, but at least he's not panicking.  
  
"I'm sure you've got questions, so ask away," I begin.  
  
"Are you human?"  
  
"Depends on who you ask. I like to think so." I can tell he wants more detail, so I continue, "The generic name for people like me is 'mutant'. I prefer the term 'meta-human'."  
  
"What's the difference?"  
  
"I'm not sure my Japanese is up to explaining it, but I'll try. A mutant is born 'different' from his parents. The ability to drink cow's milk comes from a mutation. Some otherwise normal people are born with six fingers. That's a mutation too. My mutation, if it is one, is that I can move things with my mind." To prove my point, I float upwards a bit, turn in a full circle and resettle myself on the floor.  
  
"Cool. What do ya mean 'if it is one'?"  
  
"Guy I met once told me that all humans have the potential to learn telekinesis, just as all humans have the potential to learn magic."  
  
"Really?" he asks in a interested tone.  
  
"I don't know for sure. I tend to believe him though. After all, you said everyone has chi, but not everyone knows how to use it."  
  
"Yeah, I did say that. So what's a meta-human?"  
  
"To me, a meta-human is anyone who can do something that the best trained normal human can not. So it applies to people who are born different as well as people who have weird stuff happen to them. By that definition, chi users and mages are not meta-humans as these skills can be learned. My power is in sort of a gray area. I never learned how to use TK, I've just been using it for as long as I can remember. I didn't get good at it until I was your age."  
  
"So if ya learn it, instead of being born with it, how good can ya get?"  
  
"Supposedly, those who learn TK can eventually lift as much with their minds as they can with their bodies. I'm stronger than that, occasionally much stronger. So I think my power is more of a meta-human ability. Also, before you ask, I can't teach you."  
  
"Damn... Why not?"  
  
"I said it was teachable, not that I knew how to teach it." Funny how Cobalt never mentioned teaching during our discussion. But then, all mages are a little weird when it comes to revealing information.  
  
"So what all is different about you? Just the telekinesis?"  
  
"A few things. My senses are sharper than average, but not extremely so. I maintain muscle tone and endurance with less exercise than most people. My reaction time averages 0.07 seconds. Yours is better by the way."  
  
"Thanks. So other than the telekinesis, you're just an above average guy."  
  
"Well there are a few differences. I don't have an appendix. When I'm injured, I don't just heal, I regenerate."  
  
"I saw that scar on your side. It looked a couple of weeks old."  
  
"Remember, I didn't have it when we sparred last week. I got cut Saturday night. I took out the stitches this morning. In a month, there won't be a scar." Holding up the back of my right hand I ask, "See anything?"  
  
"Should I?" Ranma inquires while examining my hand.  
  
"Two years ago, I took a rifle bullet through my hand reaching for a light switch. You could see through the hole. It was four weeks before I could move all my fingers and another six weeks to get full mobility and sensation back. Nerve tissue doesn't regenerate for most people. It does for me."  
  
"I'd say ya made that up, except ya _didn't_ have a scar there last week. Howd'ya get it?"  
  
"I'd rather not say, but you should've seen the other guys."  
  
This gets a brief laugh, but he gets quiet for a time afterwards.  
  
"Anything else?" I ask.  
  
"I'm thinking... Ya used telekinesis during that fight with Ryoga... and the one with Kuno... and the one yesterday."  
  
"There were two yesterday, but the answer is yes to all of the above."  
  
"_That's_ how I hit Ryoga so far." He sounds somewhat relieved by figuring that one out.  
  
"Yep. Also how I stopped Kuno's first swing. Although I could have done that without TK. It would have just stung a bit."  
  
"Ya didn't use it when ya was sparring with me or Akane." He states this as a fact, but it sounds more like a question.  
  
"No. I try not to use it when I don't have to. I have limits."  
  
A noticeable pause occurs before Ranma asks his next question. "So, why are ya here, in Nerima? It's not to challenge me or kidnap Akane."  
  
At least he didn't ask what my limits are. "Well, it's not to be a teacher," I say with a laugh. "I can't give you the details, but it's for a good cause."  
  
"That's all right," he replies.  
  
"It involves secrets that aren't mine to share and promises I have to keep," I say emphasizing my point.  
  
"Yeah, I know what that's like." Ryoga/P-Chan is my guess. Which is the main reason I think I can trust him with my secrets.  
  
I stand up. Ranma does the same. "So I'm asking you, on your honor, not to tell anyone about me."  
  
"Sure thing Jeff." We shake on it. "Your name is Jeff, right?" he asks in a mocking tone.  
  
"Yep, that's my real name." I've got a couple of false identities I use for my data drops and covert work, but my real name is the only one I have a passport for. Which is the main reason I don't want Nabiki to find out I'm a meta-human. She'd attempt to blackmail me, and I don't know for sure what I'd do about it. Better to avoid the whole problem.  
  
We talk about other things for a while. I demonstrate my repeller field and a few other tricks. He tells me a few stories. By the time we get downstairs, Ukyo is getting ready to close for the night. We help her clean up and she shows us out.  
  
"With all this help, I've still got time to study tonight. Thanks guys," Ukyo says while smiling at us. (Well, mostly at Ranma.)  
  
"Sure thing Ucchan."  
  
"No trouble at all Ukyo," I say as she locks up and the downstairs lights go out.  
  
We start for the Tendo's and I hear Ranma grumble, "Man, Akane's gonna kill me," under his breath.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Cause I've been at Ucchan's. Akane gets so uncute when I spend time here."  
  
"You told them where you were when you called home?" I wonder how private our conversation actually was if Nabiki knew where it was held. A good shotgun mike could have picked up most of it.  
  
"Well, I didn't want Kasumi ta worry."  
  
At least it was a good reason. "And Kasumi would tell Akane, if Akane asks?" But it still worries me.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Did you at least tell Kasumi you were with me?"  
  
"Nah, it didn't come up." Well, that's a small break, but Nabiki already knew I was with Ranma. We walk along in silence for a bit. I'd better talk to Akane when we get to the dojo. I notice Kuno is no longer at the bus stop where we left him.  
  
Ranma starts fence walking, I get tired of pushing my bike and start riding slowly. Ranma picks up the pace, and I follow. Eventually we're in an unspoken race. Ranma is running along fences and rooftops, while I kick it into cruising gear. He's cutting corners, while I have to stay on the roads, so he's actually making better time than I am. I'm closing on him after the final turn, but he makes it to the gates before I do. I prop my bike against the wall and go on in.  
  
As I go through the gate after Ranma, I notice Akane approaching the two of us. She has a steely look in her eye, but that fades somewhat when she notices me with Ranma.  
  
"Konban wa Akane," I say first, trying to draw her attention.  
  
She stops where she is. "Konban wa Jeff. Ranma was with you all this time?" she asks.  
  
"Yes. We had some things to discuss." While doing this I walk forward far enough to put myself between Ranma and Akane.  
  
"You had to go to Ucchan's to talk? You could have talked here." There's a note of anger in her voice.  
  
"It was a private conversation. Since I didn't want Nabiki listening in, we had to go somewhere else. You do know Nabiki has the dojo wired for sound? She probably has the rest of the house wired too."  
  
"oh..." Akane's head of steam had suddenly evaporated.  
  
I push the advantage. "Ukyo wasn't involved in the conversation. In exchange for the time and privacy, we helped her with the dinner rush and closing. She doesn't know what we talked about and she didn't ask."  
  
"oh... gomen..." Akane suddenly turns and walks back to the house proper.  
  
Ranma wears a sad look as he tells me, "Ya know... If I'd've told Akane all that, she'd've never believed me."  
  
There's nothing I can really say to that, so I just say "Sorry."  
  
Nothing else is said before Ranma goes into the house. I leave, closing the gate behind me. In a somber mood, I ride back to my room.  
  
-----  
  
Out of force of habit instead of any real hope of progress, I check with Monster. The results surprise me. Nothing on the backdoor, but the password search bore fruit.  
  
Half a dozen files with "words" in the password format. Two of them are game cheat codes, so I cross them off the list. One looks like a typo coming in the middle of an otherwise useless document. Two more are just words in password format. Nothing to indicate what they are passwords to. I set those aside for future study. The last file gives a list of six passwords and lists the files those passwords are for.  
  
The first file is a spreadsheet and ancillary documents under the heading Project SNK-98 Clean Up and Repairs. Interesting, but not what I'm looking for.  
  
The second file is a small program labeled "Die Catgirl Die". Setting up an isolated processor in my laptop, I run it. A picture of the pink haired girl I saw last Thursday while I was riding to school appears. After that any key that is touched produces a gunshot sound and a bullet hole in the picture. Eventually I figure out you have to press the escape button to get the program to stop. I erase it and overwrite it just to be sure it's gone.  
  
The third file, "Supplies", contains lists of weapons and ammo, sources for purchase and prices. The list includes things I _know_ are illegal for private citizens to own. File this one for future reference.  
  
The fourth file is the same as the second one, except this time the picture is of Natsume Kyusaku. It gets the same treatment.  
  
The fifth file is the oldest file of the group. It's also the most useful. Details on a field test of a power suit. Including suggestions for improvements. The suit in question looks like the suits we fought when Fastball died. There are no real technical drawings, but labeled cutaway views don't show the form fitted padding the suits we captured had. However, a request for better padding is on the list for suggested improvements.  
  
I download a copy and sweep it for trojan horses and viruses. Satisfied it's clean, I run the copy through the JASON translation protocols again. I clean up some of the questionable grammar and start the modified copy on it's way to MATRIX HQ. (After all, no translation program is perfect.) Limelight might want to look at this, Flex might too. Those two are the house experts on this sort of thing.  
  
The sixth file is the most recent, as well as the smallest.  
  
==++==++==NUFO005/Facts and Probables==++==++==  
Security Classification Red 1  
  
Male, young adult  
Height: 180 cm ± 2 cm  
Mass: Unknown, est. 80 kg  
Eyes: Unknown  
Hair: Unknown  
Other distinguishing characteristics: None known  
Blood type: B+ (exotic subtype)  
  
Subject speaks unaccented American English and accented Japanese. Vocabulary analysis suggests studied, but not practiced language skills. Subject appears to fly under own power, not leap as per NK-1124 or flight pack as per SNK-98. Subject capable of overriding missile flight controls. Method unknown but presumed not to be ECM. Subject showed considerable care in avoiding damage to bystanders. Subject showed care in avoiding damage to property. Subject showed some medical knowledge. Subject sustained bleeding injury during encounter. Severity unknown, but presumed minor.  
  
Damage to Poison 02 canopy suggests subject possesses superhuman strength. Destruction of turbines requires upgrades for prevention of FOD in future Poison series craft. Investigate possibilities for retrofit to Poison 03.  
  
Alt Ref NUFO005/Theories  
NUFO005/Physical Evidence 001  
NUFO005/Physical Evidence 002  
  
Note: Contact with subject is a Class 1 priority. Hostile action is to be considered a last resort. This means you Arisa.  
  
==++==++==END==++==++==  
  
Hmm. They got the height right, and I look lighter than I actually am, so an estimate of 80 kilos is understandable. Must have left some blood behind in the wreck or on the ground nearby. That's probably one of the physical evidence files. Wonder what the other one is? Hmm. Another reference to SNK-98, wonder what it is? Well, it's nice to know they don't want to kill me. At least not on sight. Hah. Poor Arisa, it's never a good sign to be mentioned by name in a company memo. Well, at least it shows she lived.  
  
I fiddle around for a bit, trying to find the files referenced in file six, but to no avail. I add NUFO005 to the search list along with the two passwords I had found earlier. Finally, I turn the problem back over to Monster before I crash out for the night.  
  
END PART 7  
  
In Part 8: Early risers -and- The cat with no hat comes back. 


	8. Early Risers

PART 8  
  
What's happened so far: Jeff Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. He has arranged a cover as a student teacher at Furinkan High. He's met the Ranma cast and learned about Jusenkyo. He thinks Ryoga is a meta-human like himself. He also figured out Ryoga is P-Chan. Some detective work lead to a battle with Poison 02 near Natsume Kyusaku's apartment building. Scratch Poison 02. Yesterday, Ranma caught Jeff floating in the dojo. Jeff explained a bit about himself and swore Ranma to secrecy. Continued computer work is leading to some of the information he needs to complete his mission.  
  
-----  
  
Well it finally happens. I wake up from a dream in which all the dialogue is in Japanese with English subtitles. They say you can't read while you are dreaming. I can, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense. Anne says it's because I'm too right brained. I guess it could have been worse. It could have been dubbed.  
  
Unfortunately, the reason I'm awake is my phone is ringing. For the first time ever. Hopefully, this is a wrong number. Heck, I didn't even give my _wife_ this number. My phone number is on record with Furinkan High because of my student-teacher cover, with the phone company because they gave it to me and that's _it_. More out of reflex than any desire to talk, I answer the phone.  
  
"Moshi moshi?"  
  
"Are Atsuko and Eimi there?" asks a middle aged male voice with a trace of nervousness.  
  
"Iie." It's four frigging thirty five in the expletive deleted morning and I get a call from some guy who can't dial straight.  
  
"Have they been there at all?" If anything, a little more nervous than before.  
  
"Iie." And if this _is_ from the school, I don't remember any of my students being named Atsuko or Eimi.  
  
"Sorry to bother you Anderson-san. Good bye." Click.  
  
Like I'm going to bring two female students to my room. Yeah right. I'm a very married man. I hang up the phone before my brain starts working.  
  
Uh oh.  
  
If that call had come from the school, they would have used family names.  
  
I go from groggy to alert in .23 seconds. I *69 the phone, but the call came from a blocked line. Back home, that wouldn't be a problem, but I haven't hacked the phone company here yet. Within moments I get the laptop up and running. I direct dial Anne at her dad's place on Long Island. Ring... Ring... C'mon answer. Ring... Ring... C'mon. Ring...  
  
"Hello?" Great. My father-in-law. Shouldn't he still be at work?  
  
"Is Anne there? I need to speak with her _now_."  
  
"Jeff? Is that you?" But I guess when you're the boss, you get to set your own hours.  
  
"Yes, now put my wife and your daughter on. This is an emergency."  
  
Even though he takes the receiver away from his mouth, I can hear Big Bill shout, "Anne! It's Jeff, he says it's important!"  
  
Two seconds later, I hear another phone pickup.  
  
My beloved wife says, "Got it Dad. What's up?"  
  
"Wait till your dad's off the line," I state flatly.  
  
"Well, I know when I'm not wanted. Guess I'll go play with my grandson." Big Bill hangs up. I'll apologize later.  
  
"Anne, I need a process interrupt on Monster right now. Call the office and have somebody go do it. Don't use this phone or any phone in the house. Or your cell phone." She knows the only reason I'd ask for a process interrupt is because Monster has been compromised.  
  
"Janet's here visiting the baby. I'll use hers."  
  
"Good. When I can secure a line, I'll call the office myself. Love you. Bye." I hang up with somewhat more force than necessary.  
  
I start checking the laptop. No hidden or altered files. Benchmark tests come back in spec. Damn it. I know you can't prove a negative, but after running every diagnostic I have and a few I make up on the spot, I can't find any signs of tampering or viruses on the portable. Most of the real work was being done by Monster anyway.  
  
Sort of leaves me with the paranoid's dilemma. What evidence do I choose to believe? The evidence that shows Monster got penetrated to the point where I was able to be traced? The evidence that shows the portable is clean? The two are not mutually exclusive.  
  
If Monster was penetrated, could whoever did it have followed the e-mail I sent to the external computer system at MATRIX HQ? Since the only way to add data to the internal computer system is through the gatekeeper system, that should still be safe. The external system can be replaced for about ten grand and few days of my time. If I just replace all the memory systems and processors, I can do the job for less money, but it'll take longer. Can't even charge it to the MATRIX account, because it's my own damn fault.  
  
Monster, on the other hand, represents a good chunk of all the spare cash I've had for the last four years and who knows how many man-hours. Parallel processing has always been my big thing. Not one super chip, but lots of (much cheaper) second line chips and co-processors. It's how I produce computing miracles on a budget. Of course, the hard part is writing programs to divide tasks in the most efficient manner. But then, I've put lots of effort into doing just that.  
  
Did Monster even get penetrated? Sufficient access to the phone company computers could trace call origins and destinations, even without understanding the encoded data. Traffic analysis is an important part of intelligence work. While it's true that anything that can be encoded can be decoded, I do use 192 bit encryption for crying out loud. I upgraded after the 'squeamish ossifrage' challenge got beat. At current rates of progress, I shouldn't have to upgrade my encryption standards again for 20 years. Well, probably more like 10. All right, 5 if those rumors I heard are true.  
  
Judging the options, hacking the phone company seems the more likely of the two. I've done it often enough myself, just not here yet. Damn, can't take the risk. As much as I hate to lose the resource, I'm going to have to finish this mission off without the use of Monster.  
  
"C'mon... Think damn you" I say to myself. In order to distract myself, I start doing my morning pushups. Let the problem run around in my subconscious for a bit. I don't think it was Mishima calling. Despite what that file said, I expect my next run in with them to involve lots of guns and other military ordnance.  
  
I doubt that anyone from the high school has the skills to do what has been done. The voice sounded too old to be a student. Anyway, a teacher or staff member would almost certainly have used family names. It would be really funny if I'm just over-reacting to a simple phone call from the school, but I sincerely doubt it.  
  
Hmm. Nabiki is vindictive enough to have someone call as a prank. She might have been able to get access to the school records to get the phone number. She's resourceful enough. But she doesn't seem the type to go for mere annoyance. But having already taken one figurative swing at me and missing, she might feel the need to try again.  
  
My subconscious finally gets back to me after I finish off the push ups. I've been tracing a backdoor from Natsume Kyusaku to Mishima Heavy Industries. Since it was a phone call and not a military assault, I've reason to believe it's not Mishima. It's Natsume's backdoor, he must have caught the access attempt. Duh. Took me long enough. It's got to be him. As far as I can tell, the Mishima people don't suspect a thing on the computer front.  
  
Now, I have to decide what to do next. I spend a few minutes going over all the data I have on Natsume before I do anything else. Information provides the phone number. Blocks *69, but not Information. Sheesh. I jot the number down and decide if he's willing to call me at 4:35 AM, I'm willing to call him at 5:17 AM.  
  
He answers on the first ring.  
  
"Moshi moshi," answers the same voice from earlier.  
  
"Good morning Natsume-san."  
  
"Did Atsuko or Eimi show up?" he asks hopefully. Guy has a one track mind. Apparently, details of how I figured out it was him calling aren't important.  
  
"No, but shouldn't you tell me why you expect them to? Not to mention what they look like. Or who they are for that matter."  
  
"Atsuko is my daughter, Yoshikawa Eimi is her... friend." I notice the hesitation before the word 'friend'. Makes me wonder what he really wanted to say there. Hold up.  
  
"Your bio says you have a son, not a daughter."  
  
"Ryu is my son, Atsuko is... adopted." Again with the weird pause.  
  
"And why would they be here?"  
  
"I noticed an attempt to enter the Mishima Network through my access path. I traced you from there, but it wasn't easy. Even for a genius such as myself."  
  
Modest little bugger. At least he admitted it was difficult for him. "And why would they be here?" I ask again.  
  
"Atsuko knew I had located you. She may have tried to investigate. Eimi-chan just tends to show up around Atsuko sometimes."  
  
"O.K. What do they look like and what do you want me to do if they show up?  
  
"If Atsuko arrives, tell her that 'Papa-san' says for her to go home. Ryu-kun is worried about her. Atsuko is about 165 cm, has green eyes and long pink hair. She's a very nice girl. Eimi-chan is about 135 cm, with brown eyes and dull blonde hair." Suddenly, I hear a loud crash in the background. "Nevermind, they're here." Another crash comes through the hand-set before Natsume hangs up.  
  
Green eyes, long pink hair and 165 cm. That fits the description of the bicycle girl who was in that computer file. Which, as usual for things that happen in Nerima, leaves me with a lot more questions than answers.  
  
Normal people can't ride bicycles at 90 kph while carrying a passenger. (They don't leap over trains either.) Therefore Atsuko is not normal. The computer file was labeled "Die Catgirl Die" and had Atsuko's picture. For a brief moment I wonder if Atsuko is a super hero named Catgirl. I do try to keep up with these things, but the name doesn't ring a bell. There are supposed to be some meta-humans in Tokyo (besides Ryoga), but unless I count Jusenkyo curses, I haven't seen anything besides this.  
  
At least some degree of super human strength. Since she is referred to as "Catgirl", she's probably agile as well. The wind in her eyes at 90 kph didn't seem to bother her. I know she wasn't wearing a helmet or goggles. That could imply something, but I'm not exactly sure what. Not enough to make a full report to MATRIX, but I'll file what I've got. Oh geez, I've got to call them anyway to make sure Monster was shut down.  
  
Even though the sun isn't up yet, I pack my things for school and hop on my bike to go look for a pay phone. Then I get a better idea and decide to ride over to Natsume Kyusaku's place.  
  
-----  
  
The crime scene tape from the fight is gone, but a hole in the wall on the top floor tells me what I need to know. The door requires a passcode for entry, but a little TK bypasses that. I start up the stairs to the sixth floor. I normally use stairs whenever possible. Elevators are just too easy to trap. Once I reach the sixth floor, it only takes a few seconds to spot the door to the Natsume apartment. A sign on the door is labeled in English lettering, Natsume Kyusaku, Ryunosuke, Nuku Nuku. The last is a tacked on addition.  
  
Hmm. Atsuko isn't listed. Odd. Gathering my resolve, I knock on the door. After a moment, a boy in pajamas who looks about 11 or 12 cracks it open a bit. Definitely the passenger I saw on that bicycle last Thursday. He gives me a quick glance before turning and shouting "Dad! It's for you!" He then heads off as his father approaches.  
  
A few seconds later, Natsume Kyusaku arrives himself. I didn't get a good look at him Saturday night, but his appearance matches the photo my prep work turned up. He's a skinny guy of average height wearing a lab coat over a blue shirt and black tie. His dark bangs are so long that they cover his eyes. How he can possibly see anything like that?  
  
I bow and begin speaking. "Good morning Natsume-san. I'm Jeffery Anderson, we spoke on the phone earlier." Beyond him, I can see several crates full of broken masonry and chunks missing from a couple of walls.  
  
"Oh, my apologies about that, I sometimes forget that other people do not keep my hours. Please come in." There's a little edge to his voice as if he hasn't slept. Understandable, if my child was missing, I wouldn't sleep much either. I pull off my shoes and enter.  
  
"Sorry about the mess," he says guiding me to the living room.  
  
Waving vaguely at the room, I ask, "Did this happen during the attack I saw on the news?" We sit down at a low table.  
  
"No, this happened when you called."  
  
"Are they all right?" I haven't seen this much non-fire damage to an apartment since the time Cheshire Cat faked his death. Never did forgive him for doing it in my building though.  
  
"They are both perfectly fine. I sent Nuku Nuku to the 24 hour lumber yard for repair supplies."  
  
Nuku Nuku? Must be Atsuko's nickname or something. "What about Eimi?"  
  
Natsume gives a nervous laugh before saying, "Oh, don't worry about Eimi-chan. She'll be just fine."  
  
Once the amenities are taken care of, we get down to serious business. I explain why I was trying to hack Mishima. I don't give him the whole truth, but nothing I tell him is a lie. Because I can't see his eyes, I can't read him well enough to know how he's taking all this. It seems he is treating it seriously though.  
  
I also find out that Monster did _not_ get hacked. He went through the phone company as I figured. Unless he's lying. But the longer we talk, the less likely I think that is.  
  
I can hear Ryu-kun rummaging in the kitchen getting his breakfast and hope there will be enough time to stop at Ucchan's for my own breakfast.  
  
Natsume asks for more details. I give him what I can. Info about the refurbished submarine, sales records for six power suits. He sits quietly for a minute and I think he may have fallen asleep on me when he shoots to his feet.  
  
"I have to get Ryu to school, but I promise I will look into this when I return home. Call tomorrow around dinner time."  
  
Climbing to my feet, I bow and tell him, "Thank you very much Natsume-san. Your assistance is greatly appreciated." He shows me out.  
  
The other reason I like stairwells is, that in apartment buildings, not many people use them. So I'm quite alone as I bounce down the stairs several at a time, a smile on my face. It's like that quote from Lois McMaster Bujold. "Never do yourself what you can con an expert into doing for you." Not that I'm conning him and I do consider myself an expert computer hacker. It's just he may be better. Besides, he already has a backdoor in place. Gives him a major advantage.  
  
There isn't enough time to stop for breakfast. Barely enough time to get showered, changed and to class. Kuno mutters "foul sorcerer" when he notices me upon his arrival. He is however, not stupid enough to try anything else. Nabiki neither seeks me out or avoids me, merely saying "Ohayo Anderson-sensei" when she enters moments before the bell.  
  
Serizawa-sensei has failed to arrive, and an intercom call indicates he will be late. I can't read the majority of his lesson plans, but I do know that a History test is the first thing up after homeroom. Unfortunately, he must have the test with him, because I can't find it in his desk. I give the class the good news and tell them they have the period to themselves. But if Serizawa-sensei isn't back by time for English Lit, I will still be teaching that class.  
  
The students take the news with good humor. They should considering they are getting out of a test. Unfortunately, the happiness is short lived as Serizawa-sensei arrives a few minutes later and the test is given anyway.  
  
English Lit rolls around, but I'm not really into it. I ate my last energy bar on the ride to Natsume's and I missed breakfast entirely so by now I'm pretty hungry. The look on Serizawa-sensei's face indicates he's not pleased with me, but with the end of the mission approaching, I can't make myself care.  
  
Just before the lunch bell, the door explodes inward. It's Shampoo. She has replacement bonbori, or she found where I ditched the last set. Maybe that's what took the extra day, or maybe it was the rain. I was expecting this attack to come yesterday. When it didn't happen, I had hoped I was off the hook.  
  
After the dust settles, Shampoo begins her spiel. "Shampoo not know how foreign man beat Shampoo." There are a couple of murmurs from the class. A few people must not have heard about what happened Monday. "Shampoo not lose again!"  
  
I look to the back of the classroom. "My apologies Serizawa-sensei. I'll try to keep the property damage to a minimum." Then I turn to Shampoo. "All right, let's get this done." With that, I throw up a repeller field and dive through an open window.  
  
As Shampoo crashes through an adjacent closed window, I hear a voice shout "We're three stories up!" Apparently that guy wasn't here when I did this last week.  
  
My strategy is the same as last time. Stay out of her reach and get her wet. Since she is chasing me and not the other way around, it should work again if I can get her to follow me to the pool. I use TK to soften my landing. Shampoo's leap takes her to a convenient tree. A bola comes flying out a split second later and wraps around my chest and right arm. The repeller field prevents it from actually touching me, so it takes only a second to get rid of it. By then two more bolas are launched but I simply spring away from them. The lunch bell rings in the background.  
  
Shampoo leaps from a lower branch of her tree and starts covering the ground between us with long strides. I turn and run. As I round the corner of the school, I see a brace of knives, chains and other dangerous hardware heading straight at me. I dodge some of it, and the repeller field deflects the rest. Without the repeller field, I'd have been shish kebabed.  
  
Mousse shakes his arms, drawing the various chains back into his sleeves. How the heck can he hide that much stuff in there? He shouts in a determined voice. "First Saotome, now you! No one will keep me from my beloved Shampoo!"  
  
Shampoo takes advantage of my distraction to close the distance between us and launch an attack. Not even close. She's slipping. Mousse relaunches his chains, but I jump up and avoid them. Shampoo uses her bonbori to smash away any that come near her. Mousse starts to draw his chains in again, and once I land, I charge in after them. Shampoo follows right on my tail.  
  
I launch a flying kick that catches Mousse square in the chest. As he falls down, I use him as a springboard. A mid air half turn allows me to see what happens next. Mousse pops back up just in time to get in Shampoo's way. He shouts "Shampoo!" like an addict greets his next fix and attempts to hug her in the same manner Kuno tried to grab 'Ranko' yesterday. It works about as well. Shampoo shoves her bonbori out in front of her and lets Mousse crash into them.  
  
"Stupid Mousse! Stay out Shampoo's fight!" She then bashes him once with a bonbori. Mousse drops like a sack of spuds. I guess they weren't working together. After a final glance at the love struck man, she returns her attention to me.  
  
I get to the edge of the pool and Shampoo can see it behind me. Unlike last time, she doesn't hesitate and moves in. I leap up and back and crank my repeller field to the max. Grabbing my ankles I cry out "CANNONBALL!" Once I'm in the pool, the weight of the water will overwhelm the repeller field forcing it to collapse. It should be safe, if messy.  
  
The splash hits Shampoo squarely, drenching her from head to toe. Unfortunately, it doesn't turn her into a cat. Gee, what a wonderful time for her to find a cure.  
  
Shampoo sputters for a bit before shouting, "Ha! Shampoo no fall for same trick twice! Great-Grandmother give Shampoo water proof soap!"  
  
Water proof soap? Sort of a contradiction in terms. Oh well, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I set a repeller field up behind her. It's more than strong enough to shove her in the water. The look of shock on her face as she falls in is priceless. I backstroke to the far edge of the pool. Shampoo can't swim very well while carrying her bonbori, so she lobs them out of the pool and starts swimming to the nearest edge to climb out.  
  
By this time we've managed to gather quite the audience. Ranma is looking at Shampoo in shock. Akane and Ukyo are doing so as well. I'd say Nabiki isn't in shock, but looks very interested in the proceedings. Dozens of other people, students and teachers both, are watching as well. Mousse staggers over to help Shampoo get out of the pool. She pulls him in as she gets out and it's duck season. This gets a major reaction from the crowd and breaks Ranma out of his stupor for some reason.  
  
I pull myself out of the pool while Shampoo retrieves her weapons. I raise my voice so I'm sure to be heard. "You willing to talk about this!"  
  
"Shampoo not want marry foreign man! Shampoo want marry Ranma!"  
  
"I don't want to marry you!" Moron. "I'm already married!" And the dip in the pool has probably ruined the picture of my wife and son. I notice Mousse fly out of the pool and into the building. Literally into the building as he just misses flying through an open door.  
  
"Amazon law! If outsider man defeat Amazon woman, must make outsider man husband!" Shampoo shouts out, looking as if she's ready to cry.  
  
"THEN WHY DID YOU ATTACK ME?!" I scream. If Ranma puts up with this crap all the time, he must be some kind of saint.  
  
Shampoo screams back "IF SHAMPOO DEFEAT FOREIGN MAN THAN NO HAVE TO MARRY!"  
  
"IS THAT ALL?!"  
  
I know what to do now. I walk around to the other side of the pool. As I get closer, Shampoo drops into a combat stance and looks ready to attack. I simply lie on a more or less dry piece of ground and say "O.K. You win." One hundred twenty six jaws drop to their limits. I might as well have some fun with this. "Here I lay, defeated by the mighty Amazon warrior Shampoo. I'm far too feeble a fighter to be worthy of being her husband." I've got a repeller field up, just in case.  
  
Shampoo stomps over to me. "Get up! GET UP! Foreign man no make fun of Amazon law!" She gestures animatedly with her bonbori.  
  
In a voice not meant to be heard by anyone else, I tell Shampoo, "Play along, this way you get what you want and I get what I want." Returning to my previous tone, "Such power, such skill. I never truly defeated you, I was just lucky!"  
  
Several conflicting emotions cross Shampoo's face as I wait for her response. There's anger, disgust, thoughtfulness, surprise, and joy before she winks at me. She carefully puts a look of anger and disgust back on her face before speaking. Whispering, Shampoo informs me, "Water proof soap wear off anyhow, foreign man just get Shampoo wet again."  
  
Returning to her prior voice, she continues, "Coward foreign man waste of Shampoo's time." She turns to where Ranma is standing and asks loudly, "Airen take Shampoo to date soon, yes?" Not waiting for an answer, she turns and bounds away.  
  
As soon as she's out of sight, I climb back to my feet and tell my audience, "And _that_, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between strategy and tactics."  
  
The crowd breaks up and Ranma walks over with Ukyo and Akane. "I can't believe you did that," Akane and Ukyo both say.  
  
"There's no way I'd've done sumthin' like that," Ranma states.  
  
"Ranma, you have more pride than is good for you," I point out. Akane and Ukyo laugh. "I couldn't win by beating her, that would have just made things worse. But I could win by losing, so I did."   
  
Ranma stammers out, "But ya looked so... so... so..."  
  
"Stupid? Cowardly? Silly? That was the point. I'm not going to hurt Shampoo for being subject to a bunch of idiotic laws." I never laugh at someone else's religion, no matter how stupid I think it is. "No way I'm going to marry her either. So I lost a little face, big deal. The opinion of anyone who thinks I really lost isn't worth anything." But if she tries again, the gloves come off. I figure anything further on this will be coming from Cologne anyway. Just like with Kuno and Nabiki, this attack was a put up job.  
  
Ranma just shakes his head. "I still couldn't've done it."  
  
"Jeff, how come Shampoo didn't turn into a cat?" Ukyo asks. "I could see she was wet." Ranma and Akane nod their agreement.  
  
"She said something about 'water proof soap' but she also said it had worn off." All three of them file that factoid for future reference. My stomach makes an audible growl. "Sorry, I was busy this morning and missed breakfast. Ukyo, can I buy lunch from you?"  
  
My face falls when she says "Sorry sensei," but she's smiling when she continues, "this time it's on me."  
  
I scarf lunch at a pace that makes Ranma take notice. "It's all your fault," I tell him around a mouth full of okonomiyaki. "You and your father have been a terrible example for me." Another round of laughter. These are good people, even if they've got more relationship problems than the average Jerry Springer show.  
  
When the warning bell rings, Ukyo goes to put away her grill while Ranma, Akane and I walk back to the building.  
  
"I missed sparring with you yesterday," Akane says in a quiet voice.  
  
"That's Nabiki's fault, not mine," I state flatly.  
  
"Do you want to come by after school? To spar I mean?"  
  
"Akane, don't take this the wrong way, but because of what Nabiki did, I will never spar in your dojo again. Someplace else, I'd love to. There, never." My sense of honor may be different from Japanese standard, but I still have one.  
  
"You could spar out by the koi pond like me and Pops do," Ranma puts in.  
  
"That would work." Thus allowing me to get in some practice, Akane to be happy and at the same time, blow smoke up Nabiki's butt. Damn near a perfect solution. "Not today, though, I've got a few things to do. Tomorrow all right?"  
  
"Sure! Thanks sensei!" Akane exclaims, smiling brightly. I notice Ranma getting blown away by Akane's smile. Maybe she does have something going for her after all.  
  
I get my clothes dried out and the rest of the day goes quietly. My math class goes much better than English Lit did. After final bell, Serizawa-sensei motions me over for another 'chat'. Total damage, one door (not really my fault), one window (also not really my fault, she could have jumped through an open one), and a little torn up grass. I guess Shampoo was trying to be subtle when she attacked this time, because she only broke down a door instead of several walls.  
  
He indicates that he doesn't care about the damage total. It's my irresponsibly jumping out the window he's mad at. Hypocrisy at it's finest. I mean, I've jumped out the window before. Nobody said anything then.  
  
Since I've been here, I've seen a pillar destroyed (Ranma and Kuno), holes smashed in first floor walls twice, (Ryoga bashing Ranma and one that I'm not sure about), and a large hole in the stairwell (presumably Shampoo). My 'duel' with Kuno did _no_ damage and compared to the rest of it, the damage total from the fight today was negligible. But no, I'm a teacher, so I shouldn't jump out of third story windows because it sets a bad example for the class. They could get hurt if they try it. I point out that by leaving the classroom the fastest way possible, the danger to the students was minimized.  
  
Got him there, he doesn't have a real answer to that. He indicates that he is going to mention this incident on his weekly report to CUNY. By great strength of will, I avoid laughing at him. If Natsume-san gets me the data I need, I'll be out of here by the end of the week anyway. Eventually, Serizawa-sensei runs out of steam and dismisses me.  
  
The rest of my day is filled with an after school snack at Ucchan's, the ride home, a couple loads of laundry, dinner at a fast food place called Skylark and a couple rubber monster movies on TV. By my standards, a nice dull evening. The kind I like, but so seldom get.  
  
END PART 8  
  
In Part 9: The conclusion. 


	9. The Conclusion

PART 9  
  
What's happened so far: Jeffery Anderson, 'retiring' super hero, has come to Nerima for reasons involving a dead colleague and Mishima Heavy Industries. His cover is as a student teacher at Furinkan High School. He's learned about Jusenkyo and thinks Ryoga/P-Chan is a meta-human like himself. He's fought a group of thugs, Kuno, Poison 02 and had some run ins with Shampoo. Ranma caught Jeff floating in the dojo, so Jeff explained a few things about himself and swore Ranma to secrecy. His partial hack of the Mishima computer network was discovered by Natsume Kyusaku, but after an early morning talk, Natsume has agreed to look into the incident in question.  
  
-----  
  
The day begins heavily overcast, but I'm in too good a mood to give a rat's ass. If Natsume comes through for me, this trip is as good as over. I'm feeling so good, I do an extra fifty pushups.  
  
The threatening skies mean I'm not going to bicycle to school though. I grab a large and expensive "Western" breakfast at a small restaurant since I can only eat so much okonomiyaki, no matter how much I like it. Four jumbo eggs over hard, sausage, bacon, home fries, a giant blueberry muffin and a pitcher of orange juice. No pancakes, but still worth every yen.  
  
Since the train is actually faster than bicycling, I still make it to school with plenty of time to spare. A little damp though as the rain finally starts falling when I'm a couple hundred meters away from the school. Still doesn't shake my mood.  
  
The rain continues off and on all morning. During English Lit, I don't make a single mistake in Japanese or English. Even Kuno doesn't annoy me as he gives a _flawless_ recital of Shakespeare's Sonnet XXX. The Bard seldom sounds so good. Even though everyone in the class knows he's a complete jerk, a few of the female students are giving him puppy dog eyes by the time he finishes.  
  
"Kuno-san, that was extraordinarily well done."  
  
He gives me a cautious look before replying, "Thank you Anderson-sensei. The works of the immortal Bard doth hold a special place in the heart of the great and noble Blue Thunder. Indeed..."  
  
"Don't push it," I interrupt with a slight edge to my voice. He mercifully shuts up and and retakes his seat. Inspired by the level of Kuno's performance, the rest of the class cranks it up a notch and the time until lunch is enjoyed by all. I even catch Nabiki and Serizawa-sensei smiling once or twice.  
  
When the lunch bell does ring and the students file out, Serizawa-sensei asks me to wait for a moment.  
  
"Thank you, young man. It's not often I see moments like this. An entire class doing their very best, not because there is a test or because it's expected of them. Just out of... exuberance and the joy of a job well done."  
  
"As much as I hate to admit it, you should be thanking Kuno-san, not me."  
  
"I would, but I don't want to swell his head any more than it is."  
  
I crack up. I can't help it. Serizawa-sensei leaves the room before I pull myself together. Turns out the man is human after all. I'm singing under my breath as I head down to the cafeteria. Even eating cafeteria food doesn't spoil my mood. Although it does put a slight dent in it.  
  
The afternoon session bogs down a bit, but then Japanese students have to spend a lot of time learning their own written language. With hiragana, katakana, kanji, Arabic numerals and romanji (or the English alphabet) it is one genuine bitch kitty to learn. Mostly because of the kanji. I've been paying attention in this class, but my reading and writing skills are still trailing far behind my verbal skills. Give them a century or two and I bet they phase out kanji entirely.  
  
Math class rolls around, but the groove from English Lit is gone. The sun does finally come out though, so it makes lessons on integrating the volume of a martini glass a little less tedious. After we finally get through the whole thing, I remind them that from geometry, the volume of a cone is 1/3 base times height. Whether it's right side up or not.  
  
"The moral of the story is, not every solution has to be difficult and different types of approaches may work better for certain problems. Things that are difficult to solve algebraically, might be easier to solve graphically. Long, drawn out integrations might collapse down to simple functions as we have just seen. Mind you, this doesn't always work, some solutions can only be found in certain ways. So don't spend too much time looking for an easy way out. There may not be one."  
  
Homework is assigned and everyone is reminded of the test tomorrow. The groans that these announcements cause are cut off by the bell. Timed that pretty well I think.  
  
I change into sweats and meet up with Akane and Ranma for the walk to the Tendos. Ranma is in female form due to a water fountain with more than necessary water pressure. We stop for hot water at a doctor's office on the way home.  
  
Akane introduces me to a handsome, glasses wearing, brown haired man in his mid to late twenties. "Ono Tofu-sensei, this is Jeffery Anderson. He's a student-teacher here from America."  
  
I bow formally, "Pleased to meet you Ono-sensei. Ranma says good things about you."  
  
He returns my bow before speaking. "Oh, just call me Tofu, everyone does. And this," he says, pointing to a short skeleton on a hook, "is Betty-chan."  
  
All right, I'll play along. I bow to the skeleton and "Pleased to meet you Betty-chan."  
  
"Oh, you two are so silly," Akane points out while smiling. Silly is good. Nothing wrong with silly. I like silly. Beats doom and gloom any day.  
  
"Have you and Ranma been getting along all right?" the doctor asks Akane. "I have not seen my star patient much in the last two weeks."  
  
Ranma, male once again with tea kettle in hand, returns to the room. "Nah, the tomboy's still hittin' me." After he says that, the flash of anger I see in Akane's eyes guarantees it'll happen again. "Jeff's been catchin' some of the weirdness instead of me since he got here."  
  
I think Akane doesn't nail him because she would have to go through Tofu and myself to reach him. Every time I've seen her go at him, there hasn't been anyone between them. But I think Ranma's curse may include foot in mouth disease.  
  
"Oh? You haven't run screaming from the madhouse that is Nerima yet?" Tofu asks jokingly.  
  
"I'm from New York City Tofu-sensei. This is just a different type of weird. Besides, I've met a lot of nice people here. Ranma, Akane, Tendo-san, Ukyo, Kasumi..."  
  
"K-K-Kasumi..." I don't know how, but his glasses fog over. He walks over to his skeleton and takes it off the hook. "Did you hear that Betty-chan? Jeff says Kasumi is a nice person." He waltzes with the skeleton for a few steps before returning it to it's hook. His glasses clear up again and he turns toward me like nothing happened.  
  
"Oh yes, there are lots of nice people here in Nerima," Tofu says in a perfectly normal tone of voice.  
  
"uh... yeah," I manage to get out. There is a fine line between silly and weird. Tofu-sensei has indeed crossed it. "Ranma, you ready to go?"  
  
"Yeah," he responds, apparently amused. "Thanks for the hot water doc."  
  
"No trouble at all Ranma. Pleasure to have met you Anderson-san."  
  
"Mine as well doctor." Akane makes her goodbyes as well, then the three of us start walking again.  
  
No wonder Ranma laughed when I said this guy needed to get a grip. He's got it _bad_. Kasumi might be better off with someone who doesn't fall apart around her though. If he's as bad as that just from hearing her name, how bad does he get when they are together? Ranma says he acts 'weird' but considering Nerima, 'weird' may be a lot stranger than I think.  
  
Ranma hops up on a fence and starts walking. I can hear Akane mutter "showoff" under her breath. Ranma hears it as well from his slightly pained reaction.  
  
"You know Ranma, there is a reason why Akane doesn't walk on fences."  
  
"Yeah, she's got no balance," Ranma retorts.  
  
"Hey!" interjects Akane, "I have balance! I'll show you, I'll show both of you! Here!" She shoves her book bag into my hands and using a bench as a stepping stone, gets to the top of the fence. She's leaning heavily against a telephone pole as Ranma turns and looks at the proceedings. She takes a few seconds to get her balance and once she has it, says, "This won't be so tough!" and takes a couple careful steps.  
  
"Uh... Akane... It's because you're wearing a dress." Time stands still for the longest three seconds I can remember.  
  
"Eep!" Akane flushes red in embarrassment and brings her hands down to her sides to keep her skirt from fluttering in the light breeze. Unfortunately, this causes her to lose her balance. Before she can fall, Ranma is there to steady her.  
  
"Stupid tomboy," Ranma mutters after equilibrium is restored. Bad move. Akane punches him into the canal, pivots on both feet, walks back to the telephone pole and steps down to the bench before reaching the ground. All without a moment of hesitation or loss of balance.  
  
"Jerk!" Akane shouts at the now female Ranma and then she stomps off in the direction of her home.  
  
"That one, you had coming," I tell Ranma as he pulls himself out of the water.  
  
"stupid macho uncute tomboy... not my fault she was wearin' a dress..." Ranma mutters once he is back on top of the fence. We start heading to the Tendo home ourselves. Akane is about 50 meters ahead and she hasn't looked back once.  
  
Both of them need to listen first, then react. Unfortunately, I think all their martial arts training has taught them to react first. But the incident does provide evidence for a couple of theories. No one was between the two when Akane slugged him and Ranma definitely has foot in mouth disease. Akane may not have thought it through first, but she did get up on that fence and take a couple of steps. If Ranma would have admitted he was wrong or said "good going" or done anything positive, he wouldn't be female right now.  
  
From the way he prevented her fall, it's obvious Ranma cares for Akane. Too bad he acts as if he'll be struck dead if he says one nice thing to her. Saotome Genma... I think I hate you. You've created a near perfect martial arts machine. If Ranma wasn't a nice guy at heart, you would have created a monster. Thousands of days of martial arts training and practice. Did you spend even one day teaching him to deal with someone who isn't his next opponent? Sigh.  
  
Ranma _is_ a nice guy. Incredibly so for all the crap he has to put up with. Unfortunately, his social skills are worse than mine, and mine suck. From the look on his face, I can tell he doesn't want to talk about it. So we finish walking to the Tendo home in silence.  
  
"Taidama!" Ranma calls out upon returning home. I hand him Akane's book bag and tell him I'll wait out by the pond. I don't really feel like taking my shoes off when I'll be putting them back on two minutes later.  
  
As I walk around the compound to the koi pond, I see Genma and Tendo-san bent over the shogi board as usual.  
  
Soun notices me first. "Ah, Anderson-san. Have you changed your mind about training here?" Genma moves a couple pieces while Soun speaks.  
  
"No Tendo-san. Honor forbids me to train in the dojo. But it doesn't prevent me from sparring out here. Ranma says he and Saotome-san usually spar out here anyway."  
  
"Will you be sparring with Ranma?" Genma asks interestedly. (And while doing so, Soun move a few pieces of his own.)  
  
"Maybe. I promised Akane I would spar with her. After that, we'll see." Actually, what I want to do is see how Ranma handles multiple opponents. So after Akane and I spar, I'll see if Ranma is up for a little two on one.  
  
Akane steps onto the porch, wearing her gi and with a determined look on her face. We face off and bow. I get caught flat footed when Akane launches a fast punch that knocks me back a bit and throws off my balance. She follows with a snap kick to my chest that sends me stumbling. I teeter on the edge for a moment before falling into the koi pond.  
  
When I resurface, Genma and Soun have a good laugh and Akane looks at me in shock. "Gomen Jeff," Akane says before she starts giggling.  
  
"Don't apologize. You got me fair and square." The force of her blows indicates she not holding back much, if at all. I pull myself out of the pond, re-tighten the drawstring on my sweats and pull off my soaked t-shirt.   
  
"Round two," I say as I walk around the pond. Akane drops to a ready stance. This time, I launch the attack. My punch connects, but her countering kick is enough to force me to adjust my stance. Our defenses start firming up after that. After a few minutes of feints, blocks and evasions, I force a open handed blow past her defenses to strike her ribcage. Her return kick is a clean miss. I notice Ranma's arrival on the porch. He's male again.  
  
Akane and I go through another long flurry of blows, moves and counter moves. This time, I come out the worst of it, as Akane's response to my connecting strike catches me off-guard and knocks me back, almost into the koi pond again. Which gives me an idea. I wrench myself erect and wait for Akane to attack. She stalks up, waiting for me to do something and then, impatient, attempts a snap kick. I grab her foot and smile. A look of horror appears on her face, but she doesn't have the strength or leverage to break free. I simply pull, twist and drop her into the koi pond. Akane hits the water, splashing me in the process, but I don't mind.  
  
I take a few steps back as Akane pulls herself from the water. She resettles her gi while frowning at me. "Round Three" is all she says as she rushes me. I was expecting this so I hop forward and left. Grabbing her by the right arm before she can adjust, I swing her around and throw her back in the koi pond.  
  
Ranma laughs at this, but wisely shuts up before Akane resurfaces. She's sputtering and fuming like a dynamite fuse when I tell her, "I win, two dunkings to one."  
  
She abruptly stops and begins to laugh herself. Pulling herself out of the pond she turns and says, "Ranma, I'll never make fun of you getting knocked into the koi pond again. That water is _cold_!"  
  
Which is why I threw her in there. Petty and vindictive? Maybe. But I've never claimed to be a saint, just one of the good guys. "Akane, you still need to work on your grappling defense. Plus, you ran straight in at me when you _know_ I'm fast enough to dodge you. Other than that, you did better than last time. Caught me napping with that first punch and you followed up nicely."  
  
"Uh, thanks I guess..." Akane says in a distracted voice before continuing more firmly, "I'm going to get cleaned up." She heads off, exchanging a few words with Ranma on the way.  
  
"My turn I guess," Ranma says, leaping down from the porch to a spot about 3 meters away from me. He doesn't drop into a stance, but then he doesn't need to. From what I found out the last time I sparred with him, he's fast enough to make any move he wants from almost any position, so he won't give away anything by preparing a stance. Genma and Soun look on with interest and are muttering something between them, the shogi game forgotten.  
  
As we stand, waiting for one of us to make the first move, part of the wall surrounding the Tendo compound gets blown to bits.  
  
It's Cologne, with Shampoo and Mousse standing behind her. Mousse looks as love-struck as ever, but Shampoo looks like she would rather be anywhere else instead of here. At least until she spots Ranma. Cologne pogoes through the hole, taking in the scene.  
  
"Ah, the both of you are here, very good," Cologne states.  
  
"What do you want old ghoul?" Ranma asks, obviously annoyed.  
  
"Son-in-law, you were present when this man fought Shampoo on two occasions," Cologne says while pointing at me.  
  
"Yeah. So what?"  
  
"Tell me what you saw. The truth."  
  
Ranma hesitates, giving me a brief glance. One that I'm certain Cologne noticed. "I didn't see nuthin' the first time. After Jeff tried ta pour water on us, I was too busy poundin' Kuno into the ground ta see how he turned Shampoo inta a c- c- ca-, got her wet." True, very true.  
  
"Very well, and on the second occasion?"  
  
"That ended with Shampoo standing and him on the ground." Also true, if not complete.  
  
Her eyes narrow in concentration, but before anything else can be said, a rounded red metal shape punches through the wall of the Tendo compound. Followed by another and another and another. Two more punch through near the top of the wall as I throw a repeller field around me. The six shapes flex, destroying the parts of the wall between them.  
  
When the dust clears, I see a group of 3 armored figures in front of a large, red, 6 armed mecha in front of a group of 20 or so men wearing riot gear and carrying a variety of weapons.  
  
An amplified, semi-familiar female voice comes from the large mecha. "No One Move. Jeffery Anderson, Lady Akiko Wishes To Speak With You. Come Quietly And You Will Not Be Hurt."  
  
I remember, "Hostile action is to be considered a last resort." If this was their first resort, what do they consider hostile? I don't want to find out. While I could care less about what happens to some of those present, I don't want any harm coming to Ranma or the Tendos. I'm preparing to surrender when the Tendo daughters all rush out onto the porch. In response to all the noise is my guess.  
  
Kasumi: "Oh my, I'll have to get the dustpan. And make some more tea."  
Nabiki: "Someone's going to pay for this mess."  
Akane: "Ranma, you jerk! What did you do this time?"  
  
Ranma raises his hands in defense and cries out, "It's not my fault!"  
  
Stomping down from the porch Akane retorts, "Right, likely story! It's always your fault!"  
  
"They're after Jeff!" Ranma yells, taking a step back and pointing toward me.  
  
"Excuse Me?" the amplified voice interjects.  
  
Both Akane and Ranma turn and shout at the mecha, "You stay out of it!"   
  
This results in a momentary stand off that is broken by the sound of a engine gunning in the distance. A loud horn begins honking and getting closer with each repetition. Through the hole in the wall I see the miscellaneous troops scatter and the red mecha ponderously turn toward the approaching noise.  
  
I must admit to some surprise when a Land Rover smashes into the mecha knocking it several meters away to land on it's back.  
  
A different, male, amplified voice cries "Attack!" and things get very busy indeed.  
  
The mecha isn't a threat right now, but before the rest of the opponents can get organized, I start shouting orders out of reflex. "Ranma, take the gray suit! Shampoo, take the green suit! Black suit's mine! Akane, Mousse, the rest are yours. Tendo-san and Saotome-san are backup!"  
  
The combat suits are smaller than the ones we fought on the mission that Rich died on. That doesn't mean much. They could be a different model, or they could be improved models that don't mass as much. That time, the gray suit was the fast one with stunning weapons, the green one was strong and heavily armored and the black suit was electronic warfare and lotsa guns. No flame throwing red suit or laser equipped white suit this time I hope.  
  
Ranma nods and starts heading for his target. I notice Shampoo say something to Cologne before she bounds over what is left of the wall, Mousse following her. As she runs for the nearest hole to the outside, Akane shoots me a look of... gratitude? I'm the last one to the street.  
  
"Take out their sensors to blind them, then take out their joints to immobilize them!" I shout out to no one in particular. I notice Natsume Kyusaku crawl out of the Range Rover right before I get too busy to notice much of anything other than the black armored suit in front of me.  
  
A stream of bullets shoot from the suit. They don't penetrate the repeller field. I notice something odd about the deflected shots. Rubber bullets? I reach out with my TK to grab the suit. Feedback provides me with some good news. This suit is a lot lighter than the old suits we fought. Feels about 220 kilos, but that's still over the mass limit to be affected by a repeller field. Most of my concentration is required to force the arms of the suit toward the ground.  
  
I leap for the helmet of the suit. I can hear servos whining and feel the pressure in my mind as the arms of the suit start coming up despite my best efforts to hold them down. I touch the helmet of the suit and once I have tactile feedback, I'm able to focus all my own strength and telekinesis to the task of slamming this thing into the pavement.  
  
It isn't enough. I don't have the leverage. More rubber bullets as well a couple of cartridges erupt from the suit. None come anywhere near hitting me, but the cartridges start billowing out a yellowish gas. I settle for snapping off a couple of handy antennas before disengaging to get away from the gas. Probably tear gas, or if they play nasty, a regurgitant or something worse.  
  
I catch a glimpse of Akane running into a group of three armed men and clocking all three of them before I have to return my attention to the matter at hand.  
  
Another hail of rubber bullets is handled by the repeller field. If these were conventional rounds, I'd be worried about the ricochets. Nice to know they want me alive. The suit charges me to be met with a TK backed kick. Much to my surprise, this puts a small dent in the suit's chestplate. Hurts my foot some though. Feels like I've kicked a steel wall.  
  
I avoid several punches and a kick made by the suit while maneuvering around to keep an eye on the entire battlefield. Shampoo has cracked her opponent's face plate and pretty much smashed anything that looks like an exterior sensor. Ranma is fighting rings around his opponent, but doesn't look to have hurt it much. Mousse has at least half a dozen people wrapped up in chains. I no longer see Akane.  
  
The fact I can't find Akane distracts me enough to let my opponent score a glancing hit on me. Since he's over the mass limit, the repeller field doesn't do to much to soften the blow. A solid hit that strong could have broken bones. I try to reach in for a grappling attempt, but fail miserably. We exchange a few more swings with no result before I manage to slap a TK enhanced grip on him. Since my feet are planted this time, I muster the leverage to slam my opponent into the pavement twice before the suit shakes itself free of my grip.  
  
Before the suit can regain it's feet, I'm behind it making a two fisted TK backed blow to it's helmet. It's an all or nothing shot that connects. The suit smashes back to the pavement and I hear a cracking noise. My follow up kick misses as the suit rolls out of the way. I notice the faceplate of my opponents armor has fallen off and the face underneath looks scared.  
  
A stray shot comes from behind me, just missing both of us. Now that I have an unarmored spot to aim for, I launch a jab right at his face. It connects and he stumbles back 3 or 4 meters before righting himself. Before he can train his guns on me again, I rush in. He catches me on the way in and knocks me back a step. He follows with a blow to my stomach. Good thing I didn't stop at Ucchan's or I'd be tossing my okonomiyaki. I'm not sure I can take another hit like that. In desperation, I jump up and launch a snap kick to his head. I connect and he's unconscious before he hits the ground.  
  
My conscience forces me to check his pulse and respiration before turning to the rest of the battle. Ranma is still playing with his opponent, but Shampoo is on the receiving end of a blow from her green armored foe. She falls. I start sprinting as fast as I can toward Shampoo and her opponent. "Quit screwing around!" I shout at Ranma on my way past.  
  
A green armored fist rises high in the air. It's intended destination, the fallen Amazon's head. I'm not going to make it in time running, so I start flying. Mousse flashes in from the opposite direction, snatches up Shampoo and leaps away while I grab the green suit by the arm as I fly past, dragging it the opposite direction a moment before letting go. Feels heavier than the one I fought. I manage a sloppy landing, somewhat surprised I haven't fallen over from the damage I've taken so far.  
  
A shout of "Kacchu Tenshin Amiguriken Revised! Quick Change!" draws my attention. I look over and see Ranma smirking. His opponent is no longer wearing a set of gray armor. He's wearing a T-shirt and pair of boxer shorts. The armor lays in various sections scattered on the ground. The former wearer turns and flees at high speed.  
  
The sound of high powered servos gets my attention and I turn to see the green armored suit bearing down on me. I duck under a punch designed to remove my head from my shoulders. While I'm down there, I pick up one of Shampoo's dropped bonbori. Rising, I swing for the fences, another all or nothing shot. The bonbori crashes into the chest of the green armored figure and lofts it farther than I would have guessed possible. It crashes into the fallen red mecha and doesn't move after that. It may be my imagination, but I could swear there was a wisp of blue aura around the bonbori when it hit.  
  
With all three of the armored suits out of commission, I have a chance to look around the rest of the battlefield. Mousse has pulled a pillow and bandages out of his voluminous sleeves and is treating Shampoo. Of the guys in riot gear that I find, 9 are tied up in chains, and 7 are unconscious. I check vitals for the unconscious ones. The ones who are awake seem to be all right except for a few bruises. The unconscious ones are all right as well. Ranma and his friends have better control with their blows than I do.  
  
Ranma runs back into view carrying Akane in his arms. I rush over and have him lay her down on the ground.  
  
"They hit her with this," he declares in barely suppressed rage. He then hands me a sleek black stun gun. I check pulse and respiration on Akane. Both are strong.  
  
"Akane will be all right in a bit," I tell him. "That thing," I say pointing to the fallen mecha, "seemed to be in charge. What say we check it out."  
  
Ranma doesn't answer, but the look on his face answers for him. We both go over to the fallen machine. Out of reflex, I stop to check the green armored suit wearer's vitals. Breathing looks shallow but steady, but I can't read his pulse through the armor.  
  
Ranma starts wailing away on the red mecha, but even his punches aren't doing any damage. I take a couple of whacks at a small porthole with the bonbori. Nothing. I back my next blow with TK. Still nothing.  
  
"Ranma, save your strength." I want him to stop before he hurts himself.  
  
"You'll never do it that way," two female voices state from behind us. One voice belongs to Cologne. The other sounds vaguely familiar... I turn and see Cologne balancing on her staff next to a well dressed woman in her early to mid thirties. I recognize Mishima Akiko from my research. Cologne starts pogoing over to the mecha.  
  
"You wanted to talk, so talk," I tell Mishima with a slight edge.  
  
"Perhaps after you get dressed Anderson-san", she responds demurely.  
  
I hear Cologne behind me. "Like this Son-in-law." Tap. Crash! Scratch one porthole. I can see Mishima Akiko's jaw drop.  
  
"That glass was rated for 2500 meters water pressure!" she exclaims in awe.  
  
"Jeff! The pilot's bleeding!" Ranma shouts.  
  
Mishima whips out her cell phone as I turn back to the downed mecha and look in through the missing porthole. It's the Navigator from the aerodyne, and she's bleeding from a nasty cut on her forehead. "Give me some room," I tell Ranma and Cologne. They both back away. Head wounds are always bloody as hell. Hope it's nothing severe.  
  
"Young man, that hole is too small for _me_ to fit through. You'll never fit," I hear Cologne say from behind me.  
  
"I don't have to." Her chest is rising and falling so she's still breathing. I use some TK to prop up her left arm so I can see her palm. There's a little tell-tale vein at bottom the hand/top of the wrist. I use it to verify her pulse. A little high. A siren starts up in the background. It's too loud to have approached while on. It must have been nearby already.  
  
I look around some more until I find the hatch. A telekinetic shove on the unlocking bar does nothing. Uh oh. A quick look indicates the hatch is right under the green armored suit. "Ranma, see if you can move that power suit. It's blocking the exit."  
  
It takes both Ranma and I to move the suit. The external access port is crunched. Whether by the initial hit by the Land Rover or the later impact by the power suit, I don't know. I look through the porthole again to try the unlocking bar. It takes every gram of TK I can muster applied for almost a minute before the unlocking bar pops the hatch open.  
  
After that, the rest of the work is a piece of cake. The ambulance arrives and an EMT helps me get Kyouko (as I remember her name to be) out of the "Mishima Heavy Industries Armored Octopus Mark II". Where did they come up with a name like that?  
  
By the time the last ambulance leaves and the mecha is hauled away with the heavily damaged power suits, the sun has started to set. Kasumi somehow manages to make enough food for everyone still here. (Meaning those who live there, Cologne, Mousse, Shampoo, me, Natsume Kyusaku and Mishima Akiko.)  
  
Snippets of conversations I hear:  
  
Mishima Akiko: And where are Ryunosuke and Nuku Nuku?  
Natsume Kyusaku: Nuku Nuku is home watching over Ryu-kun of course.  
  
Shampoo: Mousse leave Shampoo alone! Not need stupid Mousse's help.  
Mousse (to Kasumi): But Shampoo!  
Kasumi (gently pointing him the right direction): Over there Mousse-kun.  
  
Nabiki (handing over a list): Here's the bill for the damages.  
Mishima Akiko (frowning over same): Will you take a check?  
Nabiki: With two forms of I.D.? Sure!  
  
Ranma: Are ya sure you're all right?  
Akane (angrily): For the last time, I'm fine!  
Ranma: Ya sure?  
Akane pulls a mallet out from... somewhere... and bonks Ranma with it before walking away.  
Ranma (from floor): uncute tomboy...  
Akane: I heard that!  
  
Soun: So old friend, do you think this will help us join the families?  
Genma: Doesn't seem to have hurt Tendo.  
  
Natsume Kyusaku walks up to me and hands me a super-disk. "You have equipment that can read this?" he asks.  
  
"Yeah. If I had to, I'd build equipment to read it," I respond.  
  
Natsume laughs for a moment, before dropping his voice to a quieter level. "It's what I could find. Hope it helps you Anderson-san. Or do you prefer Tach?"  
  
Doesn't surprise me he figured it out. I gave him enough clues when I told him what I was looking for and why.  
  
"And what company secret is my husband giving you Anderson-san?" Mishima Akiko asks as she walks up to the two of us. "He certainly wouldn't part with any of his own."  
  
I don't see any reason to lie to her. "A colleague of mine died because some things that were made by your company killed him." Holding up the disk, "This tells me who paid the bills."  
  
Mishima turns to her husband. "Excuse us dear, Anderson-san and I need to speak in private." Natsume leaves and the two of us stroll over to the koi pond. "Our clients expect confidentiality, Anderson-san. I cannot sanction the theft of this data. But it seems I can not prevent it either." After a slight pause she continues, "After all, I have already lost over 3 billion yen between the battle today and the loss of Poison 02. That was you, was it not?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"I have never met an actual meta-human before. Are you one of those 'super-heroes' that keep appearing in the tabloids?" It's not really a question.  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"Do not be modest. I am sure that with some effort I can find out which one you are."  
  
"I'm certain you could... if I were what you say I am. After all, you took the effort to track me here. And it's only cost you 3 billion yen so far."  
  
Mishima's eyes narrow and her voice oozes menace as she asks, "Is that a threat?"  
  
"Merely an observation. How are you going to explain these losses to the stockholders? A field test gone awry? I don't think anyone still buys the terrorist story from Sunday." Don't challenge my ingenuity here lady. It's so much easier to destroy than create. My family gets hurt out of this and I could have your entire corporation on the ropes in a month. A week if I let MATRIX help.  
  
"'Some doors are best left unopened' is it?"  
  
"You betcha." Ah, she does understand. I escort her back to Natsume. After a brief conversation, the two of them leave together.  
  
"An interesting couple, don't you think," Cologne states from atop her staff. I never noticed her approach. I'm slipping. Or maybe just really tired.  
  
"I watched your battle young man. Funny how your feet forgot to touch the ground there for a moment," Cologne observes dryly.  
  
"Just a barrel of laughs Cologne-san." I'm not in the mood for sarcasm. (Hypocritical of me, I know.)   
  
"I don't believe anything I have heard about that farce of a battle you had with Shampoo yesterday. Of course, not truly being a man makes you exempt from our laws."  
  
Love that prejudice. "Oh really? What about Ranma?"  
  
"Jusenkyo curses are part of our law, we have dealt with them for centuries. Son-in-law will not escape that easily. Between your prior marriage, and as you are not truly human to begin with, you have no place among our tribe. That is the way I will present it in tribal council if the matter comes up. Otherwise, your various secrets are safe with me."  
  
"Thank you." I think.  
  
"You are welcome young man. Besides, I believe Shampoo would be happier with Son-in-law, and there is nothing I would not do for my great-granddaughter." With that, she pogoes off to to where Shampoo and Mousse are standing. A few words are exchanged in Chinese and the three of them leave.  
  
I'm looking for Ranma when I run across Ukyo of all people, coming through one of the holes in the wall. "There was a big fight and you didn't invite me?" she asks. I'm too tired to tell if she's actually as upset as she sounds.  
  
"Sorry. If you want, I can go to your place and trash it so you won't feel left out."  
  
Ukyo deadpans, "Don't even think about it."  
  
"Kinda glad your here anyway. I'll be leaving Nerima soon and I wanted to ask you a favor."   
  
"Uh... what kind of favor?" she asks uncertainly.  
  
"Some okonomiyaki recipes?" Some chefs don't like to share, others can't wait to. I'm not sure which side of the fence Ukyo is on.  
  
Ukyo is beaming when she says "Hallelujah! I've made a convert! Sure thing Jeff. I'll even write them in English for you."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Well, it'll also take care of an English project I've got. Sort of a 'kill two birds' thing."  
  
"I'll take them any way I can get them." She goes into the house, ostensibly to get pen and paper, but more likely to see Ranma and find out what happened. I like Ukyo. And okonomiyaki ain't bad either. I walk back to the edge of the Koi pond to think.  
  
Let's see, tomorrow, after classes, I'll manufacture an excuse to end my student teaching stay early. "Family Emergency" sounds about right. Saturday, I'll spend covering my tracks, catch a flight out Sunday. Monday, jet lag at home. It's a plan. Maybe I can take the Tendos and Saotomes and Ukyo out to dinner Saturday night. Probably be the last time I see any of them. Although... Hmm. I've got to track down Ranma, there's something I want to ask before I issue that invite.  
  
-----  
  
"Ranma, you ever think about becoming a super-hero?" I ask.  
  
"What? Me wearing tights and a cape?" Ranma answers laughing.   
  
"Well, I wear body armor. You can wear a cape if you want."  
  
The laughter stops. "You're not joking, are ya?"  
  
"Ranma, I'm serious about this. You ever want to come visit me in New York, just call me. I'll get you there, I promise. Or if you just want to talk, you can still call me. Collect." I hand Ranma a card with a phone number on it. Six other people have this number, and I trust all of them to watch my back. I drop my voice to just above a whisper. "And make sure Nabiki never sees this."  
  
"Thank you." The card disappears into his pocket. "So, what ya gonna to do now?" Ranma asks.  
  
"Call my wife. Otherwise, she'll beat me up when I get home."  
  
Ranma starts laughing and I follow suit a few seconds later.  
  
-----  
  
I decide to try Anne's cell phone first. Normally, she doesn't go anywhere with out it since Bill was born. She answers after a couple of rings.  
  
"Hello?" The connection is surprisingly clear. I can hear city noises in the background.  
  
"Mushy mushy. All done. Coming home." Brief and to the point.  
  
"Jeff?"  
  
"Aw... you figured it out." I can't wait to see her.  
  
"So what did you find?" she asks.  
  
"I'll tell you everything when I get home." After I get a chance to read that disk myself.  
  
"You'd better," she threatens. "And since you're in Japan, buy me a kimono and some goodies before you leave," Anne continues sweetly.  
  
"I'll be home as soon as I clean up a few loose ends and book a flight." And buy a kimono and some goodies. Maybe I'll ask Kasumi for help, they're about the same height.  
  
"Hang on a sec hun..." I can barely hear what comes through the cell phone next. "I'm sorry, I don't where Furinkan High School is."  
  
END  
  
--------------------  
  
Author's Notes: For the continuity fans out there, I figure this would be considered an alternate timeline that occurs somewhere between Manga volume 9 (where Ukyo is introduced) and volume 20 (where the Shi Shi Hokodan and Moko Takabishi are introduced). Leaning towards the earlier end of that as well. Character appearances are more based on the anime, but the personalities are (hopefully) more from the manga. (I threw in Sasuke because I like the lil' bugger.)  
  
I remember one afternoon, I was sitting at a computer at the Public Library in Worthington, Ohio and I came across Fan Fiction for the first time. It was Daigakusei no Ranma. I read a couple episodes and thought, "This is pretty good." I didn't even have my own internet access yet. From there I found the Ranma archive on TASS. I actually went out and GOT internet access so I could read this stuff at home and not drive out to the library.  
  
I went through the archive list and assorted links, stopping at anything that looked interesting. 2010: Odyssey 1/2, Richard Lawson's Nuku Nuku stories, Ranmapunk 2033, Long and Winding Road, and many other stories I liked found their way on to my hard drive. (With the occasional grammar or spelling correction. Don't worry authors, the altered versions aren't leaving my disk drive unless the author requests.)  
  
Then one sad fateful day, I read a piece by Mike Rhea. "Must really have something against cross-dressers. C'mon, there's supposed be a space after a comma. I can do better than this." It's the last thought that eventually lead to my first attempt at writing fanfiction. Just so we all know who to blame.  
  
Jeff Anderson and his wife Anne are characters I originally created for a Champions game that I never actually played in back in 1983 or 1984. I kept the character concepts and started using them in a Marvel Super Heroes game way back when it first came out. So my characters are actually older than Ranma and company. Go figure.  
  
I figured that the power level displayed in the Ranma series matches well with the super hero genre, so it was natural for me to combine the two. The events that cause Jeff to go to Nerima are heavily based on gaming sessions with my friend Chris Roxby and a few others folks who names are lost to time (and my horrible memory for names). I threw in the Nuku Nuku stuff because both series take place in Nerima and Mishima Heavy Industries makes a good opponent. I chose the time frame because by Volume 38, Ranma is just too powerful. Personally, I think this is why Takahashi-sama ended the series. After defeating a god, how can any other challenge match up?  
  
If I ever decide to do this again, I've got an idea for a "pure" Ranma fic. But since I wrote this to deal with a burst of creative energy which is now gone, I don't know if it will happen soon. Besides, this project took a couple of months. I now understand why some of my favorite authors take so long to publish their new work. (Both Fan Fiction and Science Fiction!)  
  
I had about 5 pages of stuff I was going to say about my views on the various characters and why they acted the way they did, but after looking it over, I deleted it. Got to leave some reason for people to write. (Although I'll ignore flames and anyone who says Ryoga, Ukyo and Tendo should all be spelled with "u's" after the "o's".)  
  
Chosen Path  
  
by Warren Phillips  
E-mail: gitm@amaxx.net  
  
Version 1.0 completed 11/05/2000  
1.05 completed 03/17/2001 (Dang, thought I caught those errors the first five times through.) 


End file.
